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An  Essay  Toward  a  History 

of  Shakespeare  in 

Norway 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO   TITE  FACULTY 
OF   THE    GKADLAii^   SCHOOL     /F    ARTS   AND  LITERATURE 
IN   CANDIDACY  FOR  THE  DEGREE    OF 

DOCTOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY  "    ^ 

DEPARTMEN'T   OF   GERMANICS   AND   ENGLISH 


1 


MARTIN  BROWN  RUUD 


I  • 


Reprint  from 

Scandinavian  Studies  and  Notes 

Urbana,  Illinois 

1917 


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iillf0  Itttorfittg  of  (Hl^xtu^xx 


An  Essay  Toward  a  History 

of  Shakespeare  in 

Norway 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FACULTY 
OF  THE   GRADUATE   SCHOOL  OF    ARTS  AND  LITERATURE 
IN  CANDIDACY  FOR  THE  DEGREE    OF 
DOCTOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT  OF    GERMANICS   AND   ENGLISH 


BY 

MARTIN  BROWN  RUUD 


Reprint  from 

Scandinavian  Studies  and  Notes 

Urbana,  Illinois 

1917 


George  Banta  Pubushing  Company 
Menasha,  Wisconsin 


^■'i.>'-.r'?i. 


MA/W 


PREFATORY  NOTE 


I  have  attempted  in  this  study  to  trace  the  history  of  Shake- 
spearean translations,  Shakespearean  criticism,  and  the  perfor- 
mances of  Shakespeare's  plays  in  Norway.  I  have  not  attempted 
to  investigate  Shakespeare's  influence  on  Norwegian  literature. 
To  do  so  would  not,  perhaps,  be  entirely  fruitless,  but  it  would 
constitute  a  different  kind  of  work. 

The  investigation  was  made  possible  by  a  fellowship  from  the 
University  of  Chicago  and  a  scholarship  from  the  American-Scan- 
dinavian Foundation,  and  I  am  glad  to  express  my  gratitude  to 
these  bodies  for  the  opportunities  given  to  me  of  study  in  the 
Scandinavian  countries.  I  am  indebted  for  special  help  and 
encouragement  to  Dr.  C.  N.  Gould  and  Professor  J.  M.  Manly, 
of  the  University  of  Chicago,  and  to  the  authorities  of  the  Uni- 
versity library  in  Kristiania  for  their  unfaiUng  courtesy.  To  my 
wife,  who  has  worked  with  me  throughout,  my  obUgations  are 
greater  than  I  can  express. 

It  is  my  plan  to  follow  this  monograph  with  a  second  on  the 
history  of  Shakespeare  in  Denmark. 

M.  B.  R. 

Minneapolis,  Minnesota. 
September,  1916. 


37^ 


^•a: 


CHAPTER  I 

Shakespeare  Translations  in  Norway 
A 

In  the  years  following  1750,  there  was  gathered  in  the  city 
of  Trondhjem  a  remarkable  group  of  men:  Nils  Krog  Bredal, 
composer  of  the  first  Danish  opera,  John  Gunnerus,  theologian 
and  biologist,  Gerhart  Sch^ning,  rector  of  the  Cathedral  School 
and  author  of  an  elaborate  history  of  the  fatherland,  and  Peter 
Suhm,  whose  14,047  pages  on  the  history  of  Denmark  testify 
to  a  learning,  an  industry,  and  a  generous  devotion  to  scholarship 
which  few  have  rivalled.  Bredal  was  mayor  (Borgermester), 
Gunnerus  was  bishop,  Sch^ning  was  rector,  and  Suhm  was  for 
the  moment  merely  the  husband  of  a  rich  and  unsympathetic 
wife.  But  they  were  united  in  their  interest  in  serious  studies, 
and  in  1760,  the  last  three — somewhat  before  Bredal's  arrival — 
founded  "Videnskabsselkabet  i  Trondhjem."  A  few  years  later 
the  society  received  its  charter  as  "Det  Kongehge  Videnskabs- 
selskab. " 

A  Httle  provincial  scientific  body!  Of  what  moment  is  it? 
But  in  those  days  it  was  of  moment.  Norway  was  then  and  long 
afterwards  the  political  and  intellectual  dependency  of  Denmark. 
For  three  hundred  years  she  had  been  governed  more  or  less  effec- 
tively from  Copenhagen,  and  for  two  hundred  years  Danish  had 
supplanted  Norwegian  as  the  language  of  church  and  state,  of 
trade,  and  of  higher  social  intercourse.  The  country  had  no 
university;  Norwegians  were  compelled  to  go  to  Copenhagen  for 
their  degrees  and  there  loaf  about  in  the  anterooms  of  ministers 
waiting  for  preferment.  Videnskabsselskabet  was  the  first 
tangible  evidence  of  awakened  national  Ufe,  and  we  are  not  sur- 
prised to  find  that  it  was  in  this  circle  that  the  demand  for  a 
separate  Norwegian  university  was  first  authoritatively  presented. 
Again,  a  Httle  group  of  periodicals  sprang  up  in  which  were  dis- 
cussed, learnedly  and  pedantically,  to  be  sure,  but  with  keen 
intelligence,  the  questions  that  were  interesting  the  great  world 
outside.  It  is  dreary  business  ploughing  through  these  solemn, 
badly  printed  octavos  and  quartos.    Of  a  sudden,  however,  one 


comes  upon  the  first,  and  for  thirty-six  years  the  only  Norwegian 
translation  of  Shakespeare. 

We  find  it  in  Trondhjems  Allehaande  for  October  23,  1782 — 
the  third  and  last  volume.  The  translator  has  hit  upon  Antonyms 
funeral  oration  and  introduces  it  with  a  short  note:^  "The  fol- 
lowing is  taken  from  the  famous  English  play  Julius  Caesar 
and  may  be  regarded  as  a  masterpiece.  When  Julius  Caesar 
was  killed,  Antonius  secured  permission  from  Brutus  and  the  other 
conspirators  to  speak  at  his  funeral.  The  people,  whose  minds  were 
full  of  the  prosperity  to  come,  were  satisfied  with  Caesar's  murder 
and  regarded  the  murderers  as  benefactors.  Antonius  spoke 
so  as  to  turn  their  minds  from  rejoicing  to  regret  at  a  great  man's 
untimely  death  and  so  as  to  justify  himself  and  win  the  hearts  of 
the  populace.  And  in  what  a  masterly  way  Antonius  won  them! 
We  shall  render,  along  with  the  oration,  the  interjected  remarks 
of  the  crowd,  inasmuch  as  they  too  are  evidences  of  Shakespeare's 
understanding  of  the  human  soul  and  his  realization  of  the  manner 
in  which  the  oration  gradually  brought  about  the  purpose  toward 
which  he  aimed:" 

Antonius:  Venner,  Medborgere,  giver  mig  Gehj^r,  jeg  kommer  for  at  jorde 
Caesars  Legeme,  ikke  for  at  rose  ham,  Det  Onde  man  gj^r  lever  endnu  efter 
os;  det  Gode  begraves  ofte  tilligemed  vore  Been.  Saa  Vaere  det  ogsaa  med 
Caesar,  Den  aedle  Brutus  har  sagt  Eder,  Caesar  var  herskesyg.  Var  ban  det 
saa  var  det  en  svaer  Forseelse:  og  Caesar  har  ogsaa  dyrt  maattet  b^de  derfor. 
Efter  Brutus  og  de  0vriges  Tilladelse — og  Brutus  er  en  hederlig  Mand,  og  det 
er  de  alle,  lutter  hederlige  Maend,  kommer  jeg  hid  for  at  holde  Caesars  Ligtale. 
Han  var  min  Ven,  trofast  og  oprigtig  mod  mig!  dog,  Brutus  siger,  han  var 
herskesyg,  og  Brutus  er  en  hederlig  Mand,  Han  har  bragt  mange  Fanger 
med  til  Rom,  hvis  L^sepenge  formerede  de  offentlige  Skatter;  synes  Eder  det 
herskesygt  af  Caesar — naar  de  Anne  skreeg,  saa  graed  Caesar — Herskesyge 
maate  dog  vel  vaeves  af  staerkere  Stof, — Dog  Brutus  siger  han  var  herskesyg; 
og  Brutus  er  en  hederlig  Mand,  I  have  alle  seet  at  jeg  paa  Pans  Fest  tre 
Gange  tilb^d  ham  en  kongelig  Krone,  og  at  han  tre  Gauge  afslog  den.  Var 
det  herskesygt? — Dog  Brutus  siger  han  var  herskesyg,  og  i  Sandhed,  han  er  en 
hederUg  Mand.  Jeg  taler  ikke  for  at  gjendrive  det,  som  Brutus  har  sagt;  men 
jeg  staar  her,  for  at  sige  hvad  jeg  veed.  I  alle  elskede  ham  engang,  uden  Aar- 
sag;  hvad  for  an  Aarsag  afholder  Eder  fra  at  s^rge  over  ham?  O!  Fomuft! 
Du  er  flyed  hen  til  de  umaslende  Baester,  og  Menneskene  have  tabt  deres  For- 
stand.  Haver  Taalmodighed  med  mig;  mit  Hjerte  er  hist  i  Kisten  hos  Caesar, 
og  jeg  maa  holde  inde  til  det  kommer  tilbage  til  mig. 

Den  Fjirste  af  Folket:    Meg  synes  der  er  megen  Fomuft  i  bans  Tale. 

Den  Anden  af  Folket:  Naar  du  ret  overveier  Sagen,  saa  er  Caesar  skeet 
stor  Uret. 

^It  has  been  thought  best  to  give  such  citations  for  the  most  part  in  trans- 
lation. 


Den  Tredje:  Mener  I  det,  godt  Folk?  Jeg  frygter  der  vil  komme  slemmere 
i  bans  Sted. 

Den  Fjerde:  Har  I  lagt  Maerke  til  hvad  han  sagde?  Han  vilde  ikke  mod- 
tage  Kronen,  det  er  altsaa  vist  at  han  ikke  var  herskesyg. 

Den  F^rste:  Hvis  saa  er,  vil  det  komme  visse  Folk  dyrt  at  staae. 

Den  Anden:  Den  fromme  Mand!    Hans  0ien  er  blodr^de  af  Graad. 

Den  Tredje:  Der  er  ingen  fortraeffeligere  Mand  i  Rom  end  Antonius. 

Den  Fjerde:  Giver  Agt,  han  begynder  igjen  at  tale. 

Antonius:  Endnu  i  Gaar  havde  et  Ord  af  Caesar  gjaeldt  imod  hele  Verden, 
nu  ligger  han  der,  endog  den  Usleste  naegter  ham  Agtelse.  O,  I  Folk!  var 
jeg  sindet,  at  ophidse  Eders  Gemytter  til  Raserie  og  Opr^r,  saa  skulde  jeg 
skade  Brutus  og  Kassius,  hvilke,  som  I  alle  veed,  ere  hederlige  Maend.  Men 
jeg  vil  intet  Ondt  gjj^re  dem:  hellere  vil  jeg  gj0re  den  D^de,  mig  selv,  og  Eder 
Uret,  end  at  jeg  skulde  volde  slige  hederlige  Maend  Fortraed.  Men  her  er  et 
Pergament  med  Caesars  Segl:  jeg  fandt  det  i  hans  Kammer;  det  er  hans  sidste 
Villie.  Lad  Folket  blot  hj^re  hans  Testament,  som  jeg,  tilgiv  mig  det,  ikke 
taenker  at  oplaese,  da  skulde  de  alle  gaa  hen  og  kysse  den  d0de  Caesars  Saar;  og 
d>T)pe  deres  Klaeder  i  hans  heUige  Blod;  skulde  bede  om  et  Haar  af  ham  til 
Erindring,  og  paa  deres  D0dsdag  i  deres  sidste  VilUe  taenke  paa  dette  Haar,  og 
testamentere  deres  Efterkommere  det  som  en  rig  Arvedel. 

Den  Fjerde:  Vi  ville  h^re  Testamentet!    Laes  det,   Marcus  Antonius. 

Antonius:  Haver  Taalmodighed,  mine  Venner:  jeg  t^r  ikke  forelaese  det; 
det  er  ikke  raadeligt,  at  I  erfare  hvor  kjaer  Caesar  havde  Eder.  I  ere  ikke  Traee, 
I  ere  ikke  Stene,  I  ere  Mennesker;  og  da  I  ere  Mennesker  saa  skulde  Testa- 
mentet, om  I  h0rte  det,  saette  Eder  i  Flanmie,  det  skulde  gj^re  Eder  rasende. 
Det  er  godt  at  I  ikke  vide,  at  I  ere  hans  Arvinger;  thi  vidste  I  det,  O,  hvad 
vilde  der  da  blive  af? 

Den  fjerde:  Laes  Testamentet;  vi  ville  hjzire  det,  Antonius!  Du  maae 
laese  Testamentet  for  os,  Caesars  Testamment! 

Antonius:  Ville  i  vaere  roHge?  Ville  I  bie  lidt?  Jeg  er  gaaen  for  vidt 
at  jeg  har  sagt  Eder  noget  derom — jeg  frygter  jeg  fomaermer  de  hederlige 
Maend,  som  have  myrdet  Caesar — jeg  befrygter  det. 

Den    Fjerde:  De   vare    Forrsedere! — ha,   hederUge   Maend! 

The  translation  continues  to  the  p>oint  where  the  plebeians, 
roused  to  fury  by  the  cunning  appeal  of  Antony,  rush  out  with  the 
cries  :^ 

2.  Pleb:  Go  fetch  fire! 

3.  Pleb:  Plucke  down  Benches! 

2.  Pleb:  Plucke   down   Formes,   Windowes,   an)^hing. 

But  we  have  not  space  for  a  more  extended  quotation,  and  the 
passage  given  is  sufficiently  representative. 

The  faults  are  obvious.  The  translator  has  not  ventured 
to  reproduce  Shakespeare's  blank  verse,  nor,  indeed,  could  that 

^Julius  Caesar.  Ill,  2.  268-70.  Variorum  Edition  Furness.  Phila. 
1913. 


be  expected.  The  Alexandrine  had  long  held  sway  in  Danish 
poetry.  In  Rolf  Krage  (1770),  Ewald  had  broken  with  the  tra- 
dition and  written  an  heroic  tragedy  in  prose.  Unquestionably  he 
had  been  moved  to  take  this  step  by  the  example  of  his  great  model 
Klopstock  in  Bardiete?  It  seems  equally  certain,  however, 
that  he  was  also  inspired  by  the  plays  of  Shakespeare,  and  the 
songs  of  Ossian,  which  came  to  him  in  the  translations  of  Wieland.'* 
A  few  years  later,  when  he  had  learned  English  and  read  Shake- 
speare in  the  original,  he  wrote  Balders  Di^d  in  blank  verse  and 
naturahzed  Shakespeare's  metre  in  Denmark.^  At  any  rate,  it 
is  not  surprising  that  this  unknown  plodder  far  north  in  Trond- 
hjem  had  not  progressed  beyond  Klopstock  and  Ewald.  But 
the  result  of  turning  Shakespeare's  poetry  into  the  journeyman 
prose  of  a  foreign  language  is  necessarily  bad.  The  translation 
before  us  amounts  to  a  paraphrase, — good,  respectable  Danish 
untouched  by  genius.  Two  examples  will  illustrate  this.  The 
lines: 

Now  lies  he  there, 

And  none  so  poor  to  do  him  reverence. 

are  rendered  in  the  thoroughly  matter-of-fact  words,  appropriate 
for  a  letter  or  a  newspaper  "story": 

Nu  ligger  han  der, 

endog  den  Usleste  naegter  ham  Agtelse. 
Again, 

I  have  o'ershot  myself  to  tell  you  of  it, 
is  translated: 

Jeg  er  gaaen  for  vidt  at  jeg  sagde  Eder  noget  derom. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  translation  presents  no  glaring  errors; 
such  slips  as  we  do  find  are  due  rather  to  ineptitude,  an  inability 
to  find  the  right  word,  with  the  result  that  the  writer  has  contented 
himself  with  an  accidental  and  approximate  rendering.  For  exam- 
ple, the  translator  no  doubt  understood  the  Hues: 

The  evil  that  men  do  lives  after  them, 
The  good  is  oft  interred  with  their  bones. 

but  he  could  hit  upon  nothing  better  than: 

Det  Onde  man  gj0r  lever  endnu  efter  os] 

det  Gode  begraves  ofte  tiUigemed  vore  Been. 

^  Running — Rationalismens  Tidsalder.     11-95. 

*  Ewald — Levnet  og  meninger.    Ed.  Bobe.  Kbhn.  1911,  p.   166. 

^Ihid.  II,  234-235. 


which  is  both  inaccurate  and  infelicitous.    For  the  line 
He  was  my  friend,  faithful  and  just  to  me. 

our  author  has: 

Han  var  min  Ven,  trofast  og  oprigtig  mod  mig! 

Again: 

Has  he,  Masters?    I  fear  there  will  come  a 
worse  in  his  place. 

Translation: 

Mener  I  det,  godt  Folk? — etc. 

Despite  these  faults — and  many  others  could  be  cited, — it  is  per- 
fectly clear  that  this  unknown  student  of  Shakespeare  understood 
his  original  and  endeavored  to  reproduce  it  correctly  in  good 
Danish.  His  very  blunders  showed  that  he  tried  not  to  be  slav- 
ish, and  his  style,  while  not  remarkable,  is  easy  and  fluent. 
Apparently,  however,  his  work  attracted  no  attention.  His  name 
is  unknown,  as  are  his  sources,  and  there  is  not,  with  one  excep- 
tion, a  single  reference  to  him  in  the  later  Shakespeare  hterature 
of  Denmark  and  Norway.  Not  even  Rahbek,  who  was  remark- 
ably well  informed  in  this  field,  mentions  him.  Only  Foersom,* 
who  let  nothing  referring  to  Shakespeare  escape  him,  speaks 
(in  the  notes  to  Part  I  of  his  translation)  of  a  part  of  Act  III  of 
JtUius  Caesar  in  Trondhjems  Allehaande.  That  is  all.  It  it 
not  too  much  to  emphasize,  therefore,  that  we  have  here  the  first 
Danish  version  of  any  part  of  Julius  Caesar  as  well  as  the  first 
Norwegian  translation  of  any  part  of  Shakespeare  into  what  was 
then  the  conmion  literary  language  of  Denmark  and  Norway.' 

B 

It  was  many  years  before  the  anonymous  contributor  to 
Trondhjems  Allehaande  was  to  have  a  follower.  From  1782 
to  1807  Norwegians  were  engaged  in  accumulating  wealth,  an 
occupation,  indeed,  in  which  they  were  remarkably  successful. 
There  was  no  time  to  meddle  with  Shakespeare  in  a  day  when 

"  William  Shakespeares  Tragiske  Vcerker — F^ste  Ded.  Khbn.  1807.  Notes 
at  the  back   of   the  volume. 

'  By  way  of  background,  a  bare  enumeration  of  the  early  Danish  trans- 
lations of  Shakespeare  is  here  given. 

1777.    Hamlet.    Translated  by  Johannes  Boye. 

1790.    Macbeth.    Translated  by  Nils  Rosenfeldt. 
Othello.    Translated  by  Nils  Rosenfeldt. 


Norwegian  shipping  and  Norwegian  products  were  profitable  as 
never  before.  After  1807,  when  the  blundering  panic  of  the  Bri- 
tish plunged  Denmark  and  Norway  into  war  on  the  side  of  Napo- 
leon, there  were  sterner  things  to  think  of.  It  was  a  sufficiently 
difficult  matter  to  get  daily  bread.  But  in  1818,  when  the  coun- 
try had,  as  yet,  scarcely  begun  to  recover  from  the  agony  of  the 
Napoleonic  wars,  the  second  Norwegian  translation  from  Shake- 
speare appeared.^ 

The  translator  of  this  version  of  Coriolanus  is  unknown. 
Beyond  the  bare  statement  on  the  title  page  that  the  translation 
is  made  directly  from  Shakespeare  and  that  it  is  printed  and  pub- 
lished in  Christiania  by  Jacob  Lehmann,  there  is  no  information 
to  be  had.  Following  the  title  there  is  a  brief  quotation  from  Dr. 
Johnson  and  one  from  the  "Zeitung  fur  die  elegante  Welt." 
Again  Norway  anticipates  her  sister  nation;  for  not  till  the 
following  year  did  Denmark  get  her  fii-st  translation  of  the  play.* 

Ewald,  Oehlenschlaeger,  and  Foersom  had  by  this  time  made 
the  blank  verse  of  Shakespeare  a  commonplace  in  Dano-Nor- 


AlVs  Well  that  Ends  Well.    Translated  by  Nils  Rosenfeldt. 
1792.     King  Lear.    Translated  by  Nils  Rosenfeldt. 
Cymbeline.    Translated  by  Nils  Rosenfeldt. 
The  Merchant  of  Venice.    Translated  by  Nils  Rosenfeldt. 
1794.     King    Lear.    Nahum    Tate's    stage    version.    Translated    by    Hans 

Wilhelm  Riber. 
1796.     Two  Speeches. — To  be  or  not  to  be — (Hamlet.) 
Is  this  a  dagger — (Macbeth.) 
Translated  by  Malthe  Conrad  Brun  in  Svada. 

1800,  Act  III,  Sc.  2  of  Julius  Caesar.    Translated  by  Knut  Lyhne  Rahbek 
in  Minerva. 

1801.  Macbeth.    Translated  by  Levin  Sander  and  K.  L.  Rahbek. 

Not  published  till  1804. 

1804.  Act  V  of  Julius  Caesar.     Translated  by  P.  F.  Foersom  in  Minerva. 

1805.  Act  IV  Sc.  3  of  Love's  Labour  Lost.     Translated  by  P.  F.  Foersom  in 
Nytaarsgave  for  Skuespilyfidere. 

1807.  Hamlet's  speech  to  the  players.  Translated  by  P.  F.  Foersom  in 
Nytaarsgave  for  Skuespilyndere. 
It  may  be  added  that  in  1807  appeared  the  first  volume  of  Foersom's 
translation  of  Shakespeare's  tragedies,  and  after  1807  the  history  of  Shake- 
speare in  Denkmark  is  more  complicated.  With  these  matters  I  shall  deal 
at  length  in  another  study. 

*  Coriqlanus,  efter  Shakespeare.    Christiania.    1818. 
« The  first  Danish  translation  of  Coriolanus  by  P.  F.  Wulff  appeared  in 
1819. 


wegian  literature.  Even  the  mediocre  could  attempt  it  with 
reasonable  assurance  of  success.  The  Coriolanus  of  1818  is 
fairly  correct,  but  its  lumbering  verse  reveals  plainly  that  the 
translator  had  trouble  with  his  metre.  Two  or  three  examples 
will  illustrate.    First,   the  famous  allegory  of  Menenius:^° 


Menenius: 


F^rsle  Borger: 


Menenius: 


F^sle  Borger: 


Menenius: 
F^ste  Borger: 

Menenius: 


F^rste  Borger: 
Menenius: 


'"  Coriolanus- 


I  enten  maae  erkjende  at  I  ere 
Heel  ondskabsfulde,  eller  taale,  man 
For  Uforstandighed  anklager  Eder. 
Et  snurrigt  Eventyr  jeg  vil  fortaelle; 
Maaskee  i  har  det  h0rt,  men  da  det  tjener 
Just  til  min  Hensigt,  jeg  fors^ge  vil 
N^iagtigen  det  Eder  at  forklare. 

Jeg  Eder  det  fortaelle  skal;  med  et 

Slags  Smill,  der  sig  fra  Lungen  ikke  skrev; 

Omtrent  saaledes — thi  I  vide  maae 

Naar  jeg  kan  lade  Maven  tale,  jeg 

Den  og  kan  lade  smile — stikende 

Den  svarede  hvert  misfom^iet  Lem 

Og  hver  Rebel,  som  den  misundte  al 

Sin  Indtaegt;     Saa  misimde  I  Senatet 

Fordi  det  ikke  er  det  som  I  ere. 

Hvorledes.     Det  var  Mavens  Svar!    Hvorledes? 

Og  Hovedet,  der  kongeligt  er  kronet, 

Og  0iet,  der  er  blot  Aarvaagenhed; 

Og  Hjertet,  som  os  giver  gode  Raad; 

Og  Tungen,  vor  Trumpet,  vor  Stridsmand,  Armen, 

Og  Foden,  vores  Pragthest,  med  de  flere 

Befaestingner,  der  st0tte  vor  Maskine, 

Hvis  de  nu  skulde 

Nu  hvad  skulde  de? 

Den  Karl  mig  lader  ei  til  Orde  komme, 
Hvad  vil  I  sigte  med  det  hzis  de  skulde? 
Hvis  de  nu  skulde  sig  betvinge  lade 
Ved  denne  Slughals  Maven  som  blot  er 
En  Afl0bs-Rende  for  vort  Legeme? 
Nu  videre! 

Hvad  vilde  Maven  svare? 
Hvis  hine  Handlende  med  Klage  fremstod? 
Hvis  I  mig  skjaenke  vil  det  som  I  have 
Kim  lidet  af,  Taalmodighed,  jeg  mener, 
Jeg  Eder  Mavens  Svar  da  skal  fortaelle. 
I!    Den  Fortaelling  ret  i  Langdrag  traekker! 
Min  gode  Ven,  nu  allerfjzlrst  bemaerke. 
Agtvasrdig  Mave  brugte  Overlaeg; 
Ei  ubetaenksom  den  sig  overiled 
Som  dens  Modstandere;  og  saa  \^6.  Svaret: 
-Malone's  ed.  London.  1790.     Vol.  7,  pp.  148  ff. 


8 


I  Venner  som  fra  mig  ei  skill  es  kan! 

Det  Sandhed  er,  at  jeg  fra  f^rste  Haand 

Modtager  Naeringen  som  Eder  fjzider, 

Ok  dette  i  sin  Orden  er,  thi  jeg 

Et  Varelager  og  et  Forraads-Kammer 

Jo  er  for  Legemet;  men  ei  I  glemme: 

Jeg  Naeringen  igjennem  Blodets  Floder 

Og  sender  lige  hen  til  Hoffet-Hjertet — 

Til  Hjemens  Saede;  jeg  den  flyde  lader 

Igjennem  Menneskets  meest  fine  Dele; 

Og  de  meest  fast  Nerver,  som  de  mindste 

Blandt  Aarene  fra  mig  modtager  hver 

Naturlig  Kraft,  hvormed  de  leve,  og 

Endskjjz^ndt  de  ikke  alle  paa  eengang — 

I  gode  Venner  (det  var  Mavens  Ord) 

Og  maerker  dem  heel  n0ie 

F^ste  Borger:  Det  vil  vi  gj^re. 

Menenius:  Endskj0ndt  de  ikke  all  kunne  see, 

Hvad  jeg  tilflyde  lader  hver  isaer, 

Saa  kan  jeg  dog  med  gyldigt  Dokument 

Bevise  at  jeg  overlader  dem 

Den  rene  Kjaeme,  selv  beholder  Kliddet. 

Hvad  siger  I  dertil? 
F^ste  Borger:  Et  svar  det  var — 

Men  nu  Andvendelsen! 
Menenius:  Senatet  er 

Den  gode  Mave :  I  Rebelleme. 

I  unders^ge  blot  de  Raad  det  giver 

Og  alt  dets  Omhue.    Overveier  n0ie 

Alt  hvad  til  Statens  Velfaerd  monne  sigte, 

Og  da  I  finde  vil,  at  fra  Senatet 

Hver  offentlig  Velgjeming  som  I  nyde 

Sit  Udspring  har,  men  ei  fra  Eder  selv — 

Hvad  taenker  I,  som  er  den  store  Taae 

Her  i  Forsamlingen? 

Aside  from  the  preponderance  of  feminine  endings,  which  is 
inevitable  in  Scandinavian  blank  verse,  what  strikes  us  most  in 
this  translation  is  its  laboriousness.  The  language  is  set  on  end. 
Inversion  and  transposition  are  the  devices  by  which  the  trans- 
lator has  managed  to  give  Shakespeare  in  metrically  decent  lines. 
The  proof  of  this  is  so  patent  that  I  need  scarcely  point  out  in- 
stances. But  take  the  first  seven  lines  of  the  quotation.  Neither 
in  form  nor  content  is  this  bad,  yet  no  one  with  a  feeling  for  the 
Danish  language  can  avoid  an  exclamation,  "forskruet  Stil" 
and  "poetiske  Stylter."  And  lines  8-9  smack  unmistakably 
of  Peder  Paars.    In  the  second  place,  the  translator  often  does 


not  attempt  to  translate  at  all.  He  gives  merely  a  paraphrase. 
Compare  lines  1-3  with  the  English  original;  the  whole  of  the 
speech  of  the  first  citizen,  17-24,  25-27,  where  the  whole  implied 
idea  is  fully  expressed;  28-30,  etc.,  etc.  We  might  offer  almost 
every  translation  of  Shakespeare's  figures  as  an  example.  One 
more  instance.    At  times  even  paraphrase  breaks  down.     Compare 

And  through  the  cranks  and  offices  of  man 
The  strongest  and  small  inferior  veins, 
Receive  from  me  that  natural  competency 
Whereby  they  live. 

with  our  translator's  version   (lines  50-51) 

jeg  den  flyde  lader 
Igjennem  Menneskets  meest  fine  Dele. 

This  is  not  even  good  paraphrase;  it  is  simply  bald  and  helpless 
rendering. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be  grossly  unfair  to  dismiss  it 
all  with  a  sneer.  The  translator  has  succeeded  for  the  most 
part  in  giving  the  sense  of  Shakespeare  in  smooth  and  sounding 
verse,  in  itself  no  small  achievement.  Rhetoric  replaces  poetry, 
it  is  true,  and  paraphrase  dries  up  the  freshness  and  the  sparkle 
of  the  metaphor.  But  a  Norwegian  of  that  day  who  got  his  first 
taste  of  Shakespeare  from  the  translation  before  us,  would  at 
least  feel  that  here  was  the  power  of  words,  the  music  and  sonor- 
ousness of  elevated  dramatic  poetry. 

One  more  extract  and  I  am  done.  It  is  Coriolanus'  outburst 
of  wrath  against  the  pretensions  of  the  tribunes  (111-1).  With 
all  its  imperfections,  the  translation  is  almost  adequate. 

Coriolanus:  Skal! 

Patrisier,  I  aedle,  men  ei  vise! 
I  h0ie  Senatorer,  som  mon  mangle 
Al  Overiaeg,  hvi  lod  I  Hydra  vaelge 
En  Tjener  som  med  sit  bestemte  Skal 
— Skj^ndt  blot  Uhyrets  Taler^r  og  Lyd— 
Ei  mangier  Mod,  at  sige  at  han  vil 
Forvandle  Eders  Havstr^m  til  en  Sump, 
Og  som  vil  gj0re  Jer  Kanal  til  sin. 
Hvis  han  har  Magten,  lad  Enfoldighed 
Da  for  ham  bukke;  har  han  ingen  Magt, 
Da  vaekker  Eders  Mildhed  af  sin  Dvale, 
Den  farlig  er;  hvis  I  ei  mangle  Klogskab, 
Da  handler  ei  som  Daaren;  mangier  den, 
Lad  denne  ved  Jer  Side  faae  en  Pude. 


10 


Plebeier  ere  I,  hvis  Senatorer 

De  ere,  og  de  ere  mindre  ei 

Naar  begge  Eders  Stemmer  sammenblandes 

Og  naar  de  kildres  meest  ved  Fomemhed. 

De  vaelge  deres  egen  0vrighed, 

Og  saadan  Een,  der  saette  t0r  sit  Skal, 

Ja  sit  gemene  Skal  mod  en  Forsamling, 

Der  mer  agtvaerdig  er  en  nogensinde 

Man  fandt  i  Graekenland.     Ved  Jupiter! 

Sligt  Consulen  fomedrer!    Og  det  smerter 

Min  Sjael  at  vide,  hvor  der  findes  tvende 

Autoriteter,  ingen  af  dem  st0rst, 

Der  kan  Forvirring  lettelig  faae  Indpas 

I  Gabet,  som  er  mellem  dem,  og  haeve 

Den  ene  ved  den  anden. 


In  1865,  Paul  Botten  Hansen,  best  known  to  the  English- 
speaking  world  for  his  relations  with  B j^mson  and  Ibsen,  reviewed^^ 
the  eleventh  installment  of  Lembcke's  translation  of  Shakespeare. 
The  article  does  not  venture  into  criticism,  but  is  almost  entirely 
a  resume  of  Shakespeare  translation  in  Norway  and  Denmark. 
It  is  less  well  informed  than  we  should  expect,  and  contains,  among 
several  other  slips,  the  following  ".  .  .  in  1855,  Niels  Hauge, 
deceased  the  following  year  as  teacher  in  Kragerj^,  translated 
Macbethy  the  first  faithful  version  of  this  masterpiece  which  Dano- 
Norwegian  literature  could  boast  of."  Botten  Hansen  mentions 
only  one  previous  Danish  or  Norwegian  version  of  Shakespeare- 
Foersom's  adaptation  of  Schiller's  stage  version  (1816).  He  is 
quite  obviously  ignorant  of  Rosenfeldt's  translation  of  1790;  and 
the  Rahbek-Sanders  translation  of  1801  seems  also  to  have  escaped 
him,  although  Hauge  expressly  refers  to  this  work  in  his  intro- 
duction. Both  of  these  early  attempts  are  in  prose;  Foersom*s, 
to  be  sure,  is  in  blank  verse,  but  Foersom's  Macbeth  is  not  Shake- 
speare's. Accordingly,  it  is,  in  a  sense,  true  that  Hauge  in  1855 
did  give  the  Dano-Norwegian  public  their  first  taste  of  an  unspoiled 
Macbeth  in  the  vernacular.^^ 

Hauge  tells  us  that  he  had  interested  himself  in  English  lit- 
erature at  the  risk  of  being  called  an  eccentric.  Modern  languages 
then  offered  no  avenue  to  preferment,  and  why,  forsooth,  did  men 

^^Illustreret  Nyhedsblad—lS65,  p.  96. 

^^  Macbeth — Tragedie  i  fern  Akter  af  William  Shakespeare.  Oversat  og 
fortolket  af  N.  Hauge.     Christiania.     1855.   Johan  Dahl. 


11 

attend  lectures  and  take  examinations  except  to  gain  the  means  of 
earning  a  livelihood?  He  justifies  his  interest,  however,  by  the 
seriousness  and  industry  with  which  Shakespeare  is  studied  in 
Germany  and  England.  With  the  founts  of  this  study  he  is 
apparently  familiar,  and  with  the  influence  of  Shakespeare  on 
Lessing,  Goethe,  and  the  lesser  romanticists.  It  is  interesting 
to  note,  too,  that  two  scholars,  well  known  in  widely  different 
fields,  Monrad,  the  philosopher — ^for  some  years  a  sort  of  Dr. 
Johnson  in  the  literary  circles  of  Christiania — and  Unger,  the 
scholarly  editor  of  many  Old  Norse  texts,  assisted  him  in  his  work. 
The  character  of  Hauge's  work  is  best  seen  in  his  notes.  They 
consist  of  a  careful  defense  of  every  liberty  he  takes  with  the  text, 
explanations  of  grammatical  constructions,  and  interpretations  of 
debated  matters.  For  example,  he  defends  the  witches  on  the 
ground  that  they  symbolize  the  power  of  evil  in  the  human  soul. 
Man  kan  sige  at  Shakespeare  i  dam  og  deres  Slaeng  har  givet  de  nytestamentlige 
Daemoner  Kjjid  og  Blod. 

(We  may  say  that  Shakespeare  in  them  and  their  train  has  en- 
dowed the  demons  of  the  New  Testament  with  flesh  and  blood). 
Again,  he  would  change  the  word  incarnadine  to  incarnate  on 
the  ground  that  Twelfth  Night  V  offers  a  similar  instance  of  the 
corrupt  use  of  incardinate  for  incarnate.  The  word  occurs,  more- 
over, in  English  only  in  this  passage.^^  Again,  in  his  note  to 
Act  IV,  he  points  out  that  the  dialogue  in  which  Malcolm  tests 
the  sincerity  of  Macduff  is  taken  almost  verbatim  from  Holin- 
shed.  "In  performing  the  play,"  he  suggests,  "it  should,  per- 
haps, be  omitted  as  it  very  well  may  be  without  injury  to  the 
action  since  the  complication  which  arises  through  Malcolm's 
suspicion  of  Macduff  is  fully  and  satisfactorily  resolved  by  the 
appearance  of  Rosse."  And  his  note  to  a  passage  in  Act  V  is 
interesting  as  showing  that,  wide  and  thorough  as  was  Hauge's 
acquaintance  with  Shakespearean  criticism,  he  had,  besides,  a 
first-hand  knowledge  of  the  minor  Elizabethan  dramatists.  I 
give  the  note  in  full.  ^^The  way  to  dusty  death — 
Til  dette  besynderlige  Udttyk,  kan  foruden  hvad  Knight  og  Dyce  have  at 
citere,  endnu  citeres  af  Fords  Perkin  Warbeck,  11,  2,  "I  take  my  leave  to  travel 
to  my  dust." 

"This  is,  of  course,  incorrect.     Cf.  Macbeth,  Variorum  Edition.     Ed. 
Fumess.  Phila.  1903,  p.  40.     Note. 


12 


Hauge  was  a  careful  and  conscientious  scholar.  He  knew 
his  field  and  worked  with  the  painstaking  fidelity  of  the  man  who 
realizes  the  difficulty  of  his  task.  The  translation  he  gave  is  of 
a  piece  with  the  man — ^faithful,  laborious,  uninspired.  But  it 
is,  at  least,  superior  to  Rosenfeldt  and  Sander,  and  Hauge  jus- 
tified his  work  by  giving  to  his  countrymen  the  best  version  of 
Macbeth  up  to  that  time. 

Monrad  himself  reviewed  Hauge's  Macbeth  in  a  careful  and 
well-informed  article,  in  Nordisk  Tidsskrift  for  Videnskab  og  Litera- 
ture which  I  shall  review  later. 

D 

One  of  the  most  significant  elements  in  the  intellectual  life 
of  modern  Norway  is  the  so-called  Landsmaal  movement.  It 
is  probably  unnecessary  to  say  that  this  movement  is  an  effort  on 
the  part  of  many  Norwegians  to  substitute  for  the  dominant  Dano- 
Norwegian  a  new  literary  language  based  on  the  "best"  dialects. 
This  language,  commonly  called  the  Landsmaal,  is,  at  all  events 
in  its  origin,  the  creation  of  one  man,  Ivar  Aasen.  Aasen  pub- 
lished the  first  edition  of  his  grammar  in  1848,  and  the  first  edition 
of  his  dictionary  in  1850.  But  obviously  it  was  not  enough  to 
provide  a  grammar  and  a  word-book.  The  literary  powers  of 
the  new  language  must  be  developed  and  disciplined  and,  accord- 
ingly, Aasen  published  in  1853  Pr^ver  af  Landsmaalet  i  Norge. 
The  little  volume  contains,  besides  other  material,  seven  trans- 
lations from  foreign  classics;  among  these  is  Romeo's  soliloquy 
in  the  balcony  scene.^*  (Act  II,  Sc.  1)  This  modest  essay  of 
Aasen's,  then,  antedates  Hauge's  rendering  of  Macbeth  and  con- 
stitutes the  first  bit  of  Shakespeare  translation  in  Norway  since 
the  Coriolanus  of  1818. 

Aasen  knew  that  Landsmaal  was  adequate  to  the  expression 
of  the  homely  and  familiar.     But  would  it  do  for  belles  lettres? 

Han  laer  aat  Saar,  som  aldri  kende  Saar. — 

Men  hyst! — Kvat  Ljos  er  dat  dar  upp  i  glaset? 

Dat  er  i  Aust,  og  Julia  er  Soli. 

Sprett,  fagre  Sol,  og  tyn  dan  Maane-Skjegla, 

som  alt  er  sjuk  og  bleik  av  berre  Ovund, 

at  hennar  Taus  er  fagrar'  en  ho  sj01v. 

Ver  inkje  hennar  Taus;  dan  Ovundsykja, 

"Ivar  Aasen — Skrifter  i  Samling — Christiania.  1911,  Vol.  11,  p.  165. 
Reprinted  from  Pr^ver  af  Landsmaalet  i  Norge,  F^rste  Udgave.  Kristiania. 
1853,  p.  114. 


13 

so  sjiikleg  gr0n  er  hennar  Jomfru-Klaednad; 
d'er  berre  Narr,  som  ber  han.     Sleng  ban  av! 
Ja,  d'er  mi  Fru,  d'er  dan  eg  held  i  Hugen; 
aa,  gi V  ho  hadde  vist  dat,  at  ho  er  dat ! 
Ho  talar,  utan  Ord.     Kvat  skal  ho  med  dei? 
Ho  tala  kann  med  Augom; — eg  vil  svara. 
Eg  er  for  djerv;  d'er  inkje  meg  ho  ser  paa, 
d'er  tvo  av  fegste  Stjernom  dar  paa  Himlen, 
som  gekk  ei  ^rend,  og  fekk  hennar  Augo 
te  bUnka  i  sin  Stad,  til  dei  kem  atter. 
Enn  um  dei  var  dar  sj^lve  Augo  hennar. 
Kinn-Ljosken  hennar  hadde  skemt  dei  Stjemor, 
som  Dagsljos  skemmer  Lampen;  hennar  Augo 
hadd'  straatt  so  bjart  eit  Ljos  i  Himmels  H0gdi, 
at  Fuglar  song  og  Trudde,  dat  var  Dag. 
Sjaa,  kor  ho  hallar  Kinni  lint  paa  Handi, 
Aa,  giv  eg  var  ein  Vott  paa  denne  Handi 
at  eg  fekk  strjuka  Kinni  den. — Ho  talar. — 
Aa  tala  meir,  Ljos-Engel,  med  du  lyser 
so  klaart  i  denne  Natti  kring  mitt  Hovnd, 
som  naar  dat  kem  ein  utfl^ygd  Himmels  Sending 
mot  Folk,  som  keika  seg  og  stira  beint  upp 
med  undrarsame  kvit-snudd'  Augo  mot  han, 
naar  han  skrid  um  dan  seinleg-sigand'  Skyi 
og  sigler  yver  h0ge  Himmels  Barmen. 

It  was  no  peasant  jargon  that  Aasen  had  invented;  it  was  a 
literary  lansoiage  of  great  power  and  beauty  with  the  dignity  and 
fulness  of  any  other  literary  medium.  But  it  was  new  and  untried. 
It  had  no  literature.  Aasen,  accordingly,  set  about  creating 
one.  Indeed,  much  of  what  he  wrote  had  no  other  purpose. 
What,  then,  shall  we  say  of  the  first  appearance  of  Shakespeare 
in"NyNorsk'7 

First,  that  it  was  remarkably  feUcitous. 

Kinn-Ljosken  hadde  skemt  dei  Stemor 

som  Dagsljos  skemmer  Lami>en,  hennar  Augo,  etc. 

That  is  no  inadequate  rendering  of: 

Two  of  the  fairest  stars  in  all  the  Heaven,  etc. 

And  equally  good  are  the  closing  lines  beginning: 
Aa  tala  meir,  Ljos-Engel  med  du  lyser,  etc. 

Foersom  is  deservedly  praised  for  his  translation  of  the  same 
lines,  but  a  comparison  of  the  two  is  not  altogether  disastrous  to 
Aasen,  though,  to  be  sure,  his  lines  lack  some  of  Fpersom's  in- 
sinuating softness: 


14 


Tal  atter,  Lysets  Engel!  thi  du  straaler 
i  Natten  saa  h^iherlig  over  mig 
som  en  af  Nattens  vingede  Cheruber 
for  djildeliges  himmelvendte  0ine,  etc. 

But  lines  like  these  have  an  admirable  and  perfect  loveliness: 

naar  han  skrid  um  dan  seinleg-sigand'  Skyi 
og  sigler  yver  h^ge  Himmels  Barmen. 

Aasen  busied  himself  for  some  years  with  this  effort  to  natura- 
lize his  Landsmaal  in  all  the  forms  of  literature.  Apparently 
this  was  always  uppermost  in  his  thoughts.  We  find  him  trying 
himself  in  this  sort  of  work  in  the  years  before  and  after  the  pub- 
lication of  Pr^ver  af  Landsmaalet.  In  Skrifter  i  Samling  is  printed 
another  little  fragment  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  which  the  editor, 
without  giving  his  reasons,  assigns  to  a  date  earlier  than  that  of 
the  balcony  scene.  It  is  Mercutio's  description  of  Queen  Mab 
(Act  I,  Sc.  4).  This  is  decidedly  more  successful  than  the  other. 
The  vocabulary  of  the  Norwegian  dialects  is  rich  in  words  of 
fairy-lore,  and  one  who  knew  this  word  treasure  as  Aasen  did  could 
render  the  fancies  of  Mercutio  with  something  very  near  the  ex- 
uberance of  Shakespeare  himself: 

No  ser  eg  vel,  at  ho  hev'  vore  hjaa  deg 

ho  gamle  Mabba,  Naerkona  aat  Vettom. 

So  lita  som  ein  Adelstein  i  Ringen 

paa  fremste  Fingren  paa  ein  verdug  Raadsmann, 

ho  kj^yrer  kring  med  smaa  Soldumbe-Flokar 

paa  Nasanna  aat  Folk,  dan  Tid  dei  s0v. 

Hjulspikann'  henna  er  av  Konglef^ter, 

Vognfelden  er  av  Engjesprette-Vengjer, 

og  Taumann'  av  den  minste  Kongleveven. 

Av  Maanestraalanne  paa  Vatn  er  Selen, 

og  av  Sirissebein  er  Svipeskafted 

og  Svipesnerten  er  av  Agner  smaa. 

Skjotskaren  er  eit  nett  graakjola  My 

so  stort  som  Holva  av  ein  liten  Mol, 

som  minste  Vaekja  krasa  kann  med  Fingren. 

Til  Vogn  ho  fekk  ei  holut  Haslenot 

av  Snikkar  Ikorn  elder  Natemakk, 

som  altid  var  Vognmakarann'  aat  Vettom." 

The  translation  ends  with  Mercutio's  words: 

And  being  thus  frightened,  swears  a  prayer  or  two, 
And  sleeps  again. 

"Jvar  Aasen:  Skrifter  i  Samling.    Christiania.     1911,  Vol.  I,  p.  166 


15 

In  my  opinion  this  is  consummately  well  done — ^at  once  accur- 
ate and  redolent  of  poesy;  and  certainly  Aasen  would  have  been 
justified  in  feeling  that  Landsmaal  is  equal  to  Shakespeare's 
most  airy  passages.    The  slight  inaccuracy  of  one  of  the  lines: 
Av  Maanestraalanne  paa  Vatn  er  Seien, 

for  Shakespeare's: 

The  colors  of  the  moonshine's  watery  beams, 

is  of  no  consequence.    The  discrepancy  was  doubtless  as  obvious 
to  the  translator  as  it  is  to  us. 

From  about  the  same  time  we  have  another  Shakespeare  frag- 
ment from  Aasen's  hand.  Like  the  Queen  Mab  passage,  it  was 
not  published  till  1911.^®  It  is  scarcely  surprising  that  it  is  a 
rendering  of  Hamlet's  soliloquy:  "To  be  or  not  to  be."  This 
is,  of  course,  a  more  difficult  undertaking.  For  the  interests 
that  make  up  the  life  of  the  people — their  family  and  conmiunity 
affairs,  their  arts  and  crafts  and  folk-lore,  the  dialects  of  Norway, 
like  the  dialects  of  any  other  country,  have  a  vocabulary  amazingly 
rich  and  complete.^^  But  not  all  ideas  belong  in  the  realm  of  the 
every-day,  and  the  great  difficulty  of  the  Landsmaal  movement 
is  precisely  this — that  it  must  develop  a  "culture  language." 
To  a  large  degree  it  has  already  done  so.  The  rest  is  largely  a 
matter  of  time.  And  surely  Ivar  Aasen's  translation  of  the  famous 
soUloquy  proved  that  the  task  of  giving,  even  to  thought  as  sophis- 
cated  as  this,  adequate  and  final  expression  is  not  impossible.  The 
whole   is   worth   giving: 

Te  vera  elder  ei, — d'er  da  her  spyrst  um; 
um  d'er  meir  heirlegt  i  sitt  Brjost  aa  tola 
kvar  Styng  og  St^yt  av  ein  hardsjikjen  Lagnad 
eld  taka  Vaapn  imot  eit  Hav  med  Harmar, 
staa  mot  og  slaa  dei  veg? — Te  d^y,  te  sova, 
alt  fraa  seg  gjort, — og  i  ein  S^mn  te  enda 
dan  Hjarteverk,  dei  tusend  timleg'  St^ytar, 
som  Kj0t  er  Erving  til,  da  var  ein  Ende 
rett  storleg  ynskjande,    Te  dj^y,  te  sova, 
ja  sova,  kanskje  dr^yma, — au,  d'er  Knuten. 
Fyr'  i  dan  Daudes^mn,  kva-Draimi  kann  koma, 

^Skrifter   i   Samling,    I,    168.     Kristiania.    1911. 
"  Cf.  Alf  Torp.    Samtiden,  XIX  (1908),  p.  483. 


16 

naar  mid  ha  kastat  av  dei  daudleg  Bandi, 
da  kann  vel  giv'  oss  Tankar;  da  er  Sakji, 
som  gjerer  Useldom  so  lang  i  Livet : 
kven  vilde  tolt  slikt  Hogg  og  Haad  i  Tidi, 
slik  sterk  Manns  Urett,  stolt  Manns  Skamlaus  Medferd. 
slik  vanvyrd  Elskhugs  Harm,  slik  Rettarl0ysa, 
sllkt  Embset's  Ovmod,  slik  Tilbakaspenning, 
som  tolug,  verdug  Mann  faer  av  uverdug; 
kven  vilde  da,  naar  sj01v  ban  kunde  Ij^ysa 
seg  med  ein  nakjen  Odd?     Kven  bar  dan  Byrda 
so  sveitt  og  stynjand  i  so  leid  ein  Livnad, 
naar  inkj'an  ottast  eitkvart  etter  Dauden, 
da  uforfarne  Land,  som  ingjen  Ferdmann 
er  komen  atter  fraa,  da  viller  Viljen, 
da  laet  oss  helder  ha  dan  Naud,  mid  hava, 
en  fly  til  onnor  Naud,  som  er  oss  ukjend. 
'  So  gjer  Samviskan  Slavar  av  oss  alle, 
so  bi  dan  fyrste,  djerve,  bjarte  Viljen 
skjemd  ut  med  blakke  Strik  av  Ettertankjen 
og  store  Tiltak,  som  var  Merg  og  Magt  i, 
maa  soleid  snu  seg  um  og  str^yma  ovugt 
og  tapa  Namn  av  Tiltak. 

This  is  a  distinctly  successful  attempt — exact,  fluent,  poetic. 
Compare  it  with  the  Danish  of  Foersom  and  Lembcke,  with  the 
Swedish  of  Hagberg,  or  the  new  Norwegian  "Riksmaal"  transla- 
tion, and  Ivar  Aasen's  early  Landsmaal  version  holds  its  own.  It 
keeps  the  right  tone.  The  dignity  of  the  original  is  scarcely 
marred  by  a  note  of  the  colloquial.  Scarcely  marred!  For  just 
as  many  Norwegians  are  oflFended  by  such  a  phrase  as  "Hennar 
Taus  er  fagrar'  en  ho  sj0lv"  in  the  balcony  scene,  so  many  more 
will  object  to  the  colloquial  "Au,  d'er  Knuten."  Au  has  no^ 
place  in  dignified  verse,  and  surely  it  is  a  most  unhappy  equivalent 
for  "Ay,  there's  the  rub. "  Aasen  would  have  replied  that  Hamlet's, 
words  are  themselves  colloquial;  but  the  English  conveys  no 
such  connotation  of  easy  speech  as  does  the  Landsmaal  to  a  great 
part  of  the  Norwegian  people.  But  this  is  a  trifle.  The  fact 
remains  that  Aasen  gave  a  noble  form  to  Shakespeare's  noble 
verse. 


For  many  years  the  work  of  Hauge  and  Aasen  stood  alone  in 
Norwegian  literature.  The  reading  pubUc  was  content  to  go  to 
Denmark,  and  the  growing  Landsmaal  literature  was  concerned 


17 

with  other  matters — first  of  all,  with  the  task  of  establishing  itself 
and  the  even  more  complicated  problem  of  finding  a  form — orthog- 
raphy, syntax,  and  inflexions  which  should  command  general 
acceptance.  For  the  Landsmaal  of  Ivar  Aasen  was  frankly 
based  on  "the  best  dialects,"  and  by  this  he  meant,  of  course,  the 
dialects  that  best  preserved  the  forms  of  the  Old  Norse.  These 
were  the  dialects  of  the  west  coast  and  the  mountains.  To  Aasen 
the  speech  of  the  towns,  of  the  south-east  coast  and  of  the  great 
eastern  valleys  and  uplands  was  corrupt  and  vitiated.  It  seemed 
foreign,  saturated  and  spoiled  by  Danish.  There  were  those, 
however,  who  saw  farther.  If  Landsmaal  was  to  strike  root, 
it  must  take  into  account  not  merely  "the  purest  dialects"  but 
the  speech  of  the  whole  country.  It  could  not,  for  example, 
retain  forms  like  "dat,"  "dan,"  etc.,  which  were  peculiar  to 
S^ndmjir,  because  they  happened  to  be  Uneal  descendants  of  Old 
Norse,  nor  should  it  insist  on  preterites  in  ade  and  participles  in 
ad  merely  because  these  forms  were  found  in  the  sagas.  We  can- 
not enter  upon  this  subject;  we  can  but  point  out  that  this  move- 
ment was  bom  almost  with  Landsmaal  itself,  and  that,  after 
Aasen's  fragments,  the  first  Norwegian  translation  of  any  part 
of  Shakespeare  is  a  rendering  of  Sonnet  CXXX  in  popularized 
Eastern,  as  distinguished  from  Aasen's  literary,  aristocratic  Western 
Landsmaal.  It  is  the  first  translation  of  a  Shakespearean  sonnet 
on  Norwegian  soil.    The  new  language  was  hewing  out  new  paths. 

Som  Soli  Augunn'  inkje  skjin, 

og  som  Koraller  inkje  Lipimn'  glansar, 

og  snjokvit  hev  ho  inkje  Halsen  sin, 

og  Gullhaar  inkje  Hove  hennar  kransar, 

Eg  baae  kvit'  og  raue  Roser  ser — , 

paa  Kinni  hennar  deira  Lit'  kje  blandast; 

og  meire  fin  vel  Blomsterangen  er, 

en  den  som  ut  fraa  Lipunn'  hennar  andast. 

Eg  hj^yrt  hev  hennar  R^yst  og  veit  endaa, 
at  inkje  som  ein  Song  dei  laeter  Ori; 
og  aldrig  hev  eg  set  en  Engel  gaa — 
og  gjenta  mi  ser  st^tt  eg  gaa  paa  Jori. 
Men  ho  er  stfJrre  Lov  og  ^re  vaer 
enn  pyntedokkane  me  laana  Glansen. 
Den  reine  Hugen  seg  i  alting  ter, 
og  Ijost  ho  smilar  under  Brurekransen.'* 

*»"Em  Sonett  etter  WiUiam  Shakespeare."    Fraw— 1872. 


18 

Obviously  this  is  not  a  sonnet  at  all.  Not  only  does  the  trans- 
lator ignore  Shakespeare's  rime  scheme,  but  he  sets  aside  the  ele- 
mentary definition  of  a  sonnet — a  poem  of  fourteen  lines.  We  have 
here  sixteen  lines  and  the  last  two  add  nothing  to  the  original. 
The  poet,  through  lack  of  skill,  has  simply  run  on.  He  could  have 
ended  with  line  14  and  then,  whatever  other  criticism  might  have 
been  passed  upon  his  work,  we  should  have  had  at  least  the  sonnet 
form.  The  additional  lines  are  in  themselves  fairly  good  poetry 
but  they  have  no  place  in  what  purports  to  be  translation.  The 
translator  signs  himself  simply  "  r. "  Whoever  he  was,  he  had  poetic 
feeling  and  power  of  expression.  No  mere  poetaster  could  have 
given  lines  so  exquisite  in  their  imagery,  so  full  of  music,  and  so 
happy  in  their  phrasing.  This  fact  in  itself  makes  it  a  poor  trans- 
lation, for  it  is  rather  a  paraphrase  with  a  quality  and  excellence 
all  its  own.  Not  a  Une  exactly  renders  the  English.  The  para- 
phrase is  never  so  good  as  the  original  but,  considered  by  itself, 
it  is  good  poetry.  The  disillusionment  comes  only  with  com- 
parison. On  the  whole,  this  second  attempt  to  put  Shakespeare 
into  Landsmaal  was  distinctly  less  successful  than  the  first.  As 
poetry  it  does  not  measure  up  to  Aasen;  as  translation  it  is  peri- 
phrastic, arbitrary,  not  at  all  faithful. 


The  translations  which  we  have  thus  far  considered  were  mere 
fragments — ^brief  soliloquies  or  a  single  sonnet,  and  they  were 
done  into  a  dialect  which  was  not  then  and  is  not  now  the  pre- 
vailing literary  language  of  the  country.  They  were  earnest  and, 
in  the  case  of  Aasen,  successful  attempts  to  show  that  Landsmaal 
was  adequate  to  the  most  varied  and  remote  of  styles.  But  many 
years  were  to  elapse  before  anyone  attempted  the  far  more  dif- 
ficult task  of  turning  any  considerable  part  of  Shakespeare  into 
"Modem  Norwegian." 

Norway  still  reUed,  with  no  apparent  sense  of  humiUation, 
on  the  translations  of  Shakespeare  as  they  came  up  from  Copen- 
hagen. In  1881,  however,  Hartvig  Lassen  (1824-1897)  translated 
The  Merchant  of  VeniceP    Lassen  matriculated  as  a  student  in 

^^  Kj^hmanden  i  Venedig — Et  Skuespil  af  William  Shakespeare.  Oversat 
af  Hartvig  Lassen.  Udgivet  af  Selskabet  for  Folkeoplysningens  Fremme  som 
andet  Tillaegshefte  til  Folkevennen  for  188  L     Kristiania,  1881. 


19 

1842,  and  from  1850  supported  himseK  as  a  literateur,  writing 
reviews  of  books  and  plays  for  Krydseren  and  Aftenposten.  In 
1872  he  was  appointed  Artistic  Censor  at  the  theater,  and  in  that 
office  translated  a  multitude  of  plays  from  ahnost  every  language 
of  Western  Europe.  His  published  translations  of  Shakespeare 
are,  however,  quite  unrelated  to  hi  i  theatrical  work.  They  were 
done  for  school  use  and  pubUshed  by  Selskahet  for  Folkeoplysnin- 
gens  Fremme  (Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Popular  Education). 

To  Kj^bmanden  i  Venedig  there  is  no  introduction  and  no 
notes — merely  a  postscript  in  which  the  translator  declares  that 
he  has  endeavored  everywhere  faithfully  to  reproduce  the  pecu- 
liar tone  of  the  play  and  to  preserve  the  concentration  of  style 
which  is  everywhere  characteristic  of  Shakespeare.  He  acknowl- 
edges his  indebtedness  to  the  Swedish  translation  by  Hagberg 
and  the  German  by  Schlegel.  Inasmuch  as  this  work  was  pub- 
lished for  wide,  general  distribution  and  for  reading  in  the  schools, 
Lassen  cut  out  the  passages  which  he  deemed  unsuitable  for  the 
untutored  mind.  "But,"  he  adds,  "with  the  exception  of  the 
last  scene  of  Act  III,  which,  in  its  expurgated  form,  would  be  too 
fragmentary  (and  which,  indeed,  does  not  bear  any  immediate 
relation  to  the  action),  only  a  few  isolated  passages  have  been  cut. 
Shakespeare  has  lost  next  to  nothing,  and  a  great  deal  has  been 
gained  if  I  have  hereby  removed  one  groimd  for  the  hesitation 
which  most  teachers  would  feel  in  using  the  book  in  the  public 
schools."  In  Act  III,  Scene  5  is  omitted  entirely,  and  obvious 
passages  in  other  parts  of  the  play. 

It  has  frequently  been  said  that  Lassen  did  little  more  than 
"norvagicize"  Lembcke's  Danish  renderings.  And  certainly 
even  the  most  cursory  reading  will  show  that  he  had  Lembcke  at 
hand.  But  comparison  will  also  show  that  variations  from  Lembcke 
are  numerous  and  considerable.  Lassen  was  a  man  of  letters, 
a  critic,  and  a  good  student  of  foreign  languages,  but  he  was  no 
poet,  and  his  Merchant  of  Venice  is,  generally  speaking,  much 
inferior  to  Lembcke's.  Compare,  for  example,  the  exquisite 
opening  of  the  fifth  act: 

Lassen  Lembcke 

Lor:  Klart  skinner  Maanen,  i  en  Nat  Klart  skinner  Maanen,  i  en  Nat  som 

som  denne,  denne, 

da  Vinden  gled  med  Lys  igjen-  mens  Luftningen   saa   sagte  kyssed 

nem  I^vet,  Trseet 


20 


og   alt  var  tyst:  i  slig  en  Nat  at  knapt  det  sused,  i  en  saadan  Nat 

forvist 

trojas  MurtinderTroilusbesteg,  steg  Troilus  vist  up  paa  Trojas  Mur 

til   Graekerlejren,  til  sin    Cres-  og  sukked  ud  sin  Sjael  mod    Graeker- 


sida 
udsukkende  sin  Sjael. 
Jes:  I  slig  en  Nat 

sig  Thisbe  listed  aengstelig,  over 
Duggen 


lejren 
der  gjemte  Cressida. 

En  saadan  Nat 
gik  Thisbe  bange  trippende  paa  Dug- 
gen 

saa  Livens  Skygge  f^r  hun  saa      og  0jned  Ljrfvens  Skygge  fjir  den  selv 
den  selv, 

og  10b  forfaerdet  bort. 

En  saadan  Nat 
stod    Dido    med    en    Vidjekvist  i 
Haanden 

paa  vilden  Strand  og  vinkede  sin  Elsker 


og  10b  forskraekket  bort. 
Lor:  I  slig  en  Nat 

stod  Dido  med  en  Vidjevaand  i 

Haanden 
paa  vilden  strand,  og  vinked  til 

Kartago 
sin  elsker  hjem  igjen. 
Jes:  I  slig  en  Nat 

Medea  plukked  Galder-Urt  for 

Aeson 
bans  Ungdom  at  fomy. 
Lor:  I  slig  en  Nat 

stjal  Jessica    sig  fra  den  rige 

J0de, 
L0b  fra  Venedig  med  er  lystig 

Elsker 
til  Belmont  uden  Stands. 
Jes:  I  slig  en  Nat 

svor  ung  Lorenzo  at  han  elsked 
hende, 

stjal   hendes  Sjael  med  mange 

Troskabsl0fter 
og  ikke  et  var  sandt. 
Lor:  I  slig  en  Nat 

skj0n  Jessica,  den  lille  Klaffer- 

tunge, 
l0i  paa  sin  Elsker,  og  han  tilgav 

hende. 
Jes:   Jeg  gad  fortalt  dig  mer  om  slig 

en  Nat, 

hvis  jeg  ei  h0rte  nogen  komm- 

tys! 


tilbage  til  Carthagos  Kyst. 

Det  var 
en  saadan  Nat,  da  sankede  Medea 

de  Troldomsurter  der  foryngede  den 
gamle  Aeson. 

Og  en  saadan  Nat 
sneg  Jessica  sig  fra  den  rige  J0de 
og    10b     med    en    Landstryger    fra 

Venedig 
herhid  til  Belmont. 

Og  en  saadan  Nat 
svor  ung  Lorenzo  hende  Kjaerlighed 

og   stjal   med   Troskabseder  hendes 

Hjerte 
og  aldrig  en  var  sand. 

I  slig  en  Nat 
bagtalte  just  skj0n  Jessica  sin  Elsker 

ret  som  en  lille  Trold,  og  han  tilgav 

det. 
Jeg  skulde  sagtens  "ovematte"  dig 
hvis  ingen  kom;  men  tys,  jeg  h0rer  der 
Trin  af  en  Mand. 


Lembcke*s  version  is  faithful  to  the  point  of  slavishness. 
Compare,  for  example,  "Jeg  skulde  sagtens  overnatte  dig"  with 
*'I  would  outnight  you."    Lassen,  though  never  grossly  inaccur- 


21 

ate,  allows  himself  greater  liberties.  Compare  lines  2-6  with 
the  original  and  with  Lembcke  In  every  case  the  Danish  ver- 
sion is  more  faithful  than  the  Norwegian.  And  more  mellifluous. 
Why  Lassen  should  choose  such  clumsy  and  banal  lines  as: 

I  slig  en  Nat 
Trojas  Murtinder  Troilus  besteg 

when  he  could  have  used  Lembcke^s,  is  inexpUcable  except  on 
the  hypothesis  that  he  was  eager  to  prove  his  own  originality. 
The  remainder  of  Lorenzo's  first  speech  is  scarcely  better.  It  is 
neither  good  translation  nor  decent  verse. 

In  1882  came  Lassen's  Julius  Caesar ^^^  likewise  published  as 
a  supplement  to  Folkevennen  for  use  in  the  schools.  A  short 
postscript  tells  us  that  the  principles  which  governed  in  the  trans- 
lation of  the  earlier  play  have  governed  here  also.  Lassen  speci- 
fically declares  that  he  used  Foersom's  translation  (Copenhagen, 
1811)  as  the  basis  for  the  translation  of  Antony's  oration.  A  com- 
parison shows  that  in  this  scene  Lassen  follows  Foersom  closely — 
he  keeps  archaisms  which  Lembcke  amended.  One  or  two  in- 
stances: 

Foersom:  Seer,  her  foer  Casii  Dolk  igjennem  den; 

seer,  hvilken  Rift  den  nidske  Casca  gjorde; 
her  rammed'  den  h^itelskte  Bruti  Dolk,  etc. 

Lembcke:  Se,  her  foer  Cassius'  Dolk  igjennem  den; 

se  hvilken  Rift  den  onde  Casca  gjorde. 
Her  stjidte  Brutus  den  hjiitelskede,  etc. 

Lassen:  Se!  her  foer  Casii  Dolk  igjennem  den; 

se  hvilken  Rift  den  onde  Casca  gjorde. 
Her  rammed  den  h^ielskte  Bruti  Dolk,  etc. 

For  the  rest,  a  reading  of  this  translation  leaves  the  same  im- 
pression as  a  reading  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice — it  is  a  reasonably 
good  piece  of  work  but  distinctly  inferior  to  Foersom  and  to 
Lembcke's  modernization  of  Foersom.  Lassen  clearly  had 
Lembcke  at  hand;  he  seldom,  however,  followed  him  for  more 
than  a  line  or  two.  What  is  more  important  is  that  there  are 
reminiscences  of  Foersom  not  only  in  the  funeral  scene,  where 

^*  Julius  Caesar.  Et  Skuespil  af  William  Shakespeare.  Oversat  af 
Hartvig  Lassen.  Udgivet  af  Selskabet  for  Folkeoplysningens  Fremme  som 
fjzJrste  Tillaegshefte  til  Folkevennen  for  1882.  Kristiania,  1882.  Grjrfndal 
og  Sjin. 


22 

Lassen  himself  acknowledges  the  fact,  but  elsewhere.  Note  a 
few  lines  from  the  quarrel  between  Brutus  and  Cassius  (Act  IV, 
Sc.  3)  beginning  with  Cassius'  speech: 

Urge  me  no  more,  I  shall  forget  myself. 

Foersom  (Ed.  1811)  has: 

Cos'.  Tir  mig  ei  mer  at  jeg  ei  glemmer  mig; 

husk  Eders  Vel — og  frist  mig  ikke  mere. 
Brw.  Bort,  svage  Mand! 

Cos:  Er  dette  muligt? 

Bru:  H0r  mig;  jeg  vil  tale. 

Skal  jeg  for  Eders  vilde  Sind  mig  b^ie? 

Troer  I  jeg  kyses  af  en  gal  Mands  Blik? 
Cos:  O  Guder,  Guder!  skal  jeg  taale  dette? 

Bru:  Ja,  meer.    Brum  saa  dette  stolte  Hierte  blister; 

Gak,  viis  den  Haeftighed  for  Eders  Traelle, 

og  faa  dem  til  at  skielve.     Skal  jeg  vige, 

og  f^ie  Eder?     Skal  jeg  staae  og  b^ie 

mig  under  Eders  Luners  Arrighed? 

Ved  Gudeme,  I  skal  nedsvaelge  selv 

al  Eders  Galdes  Gift,  om  end  I  brast; 

thi  fra  i  dag  af  bruger  jeg  Jer  kun 

til  Moerskab,  ja  til  latter  naar  I  vredes. 

And  Lassen  has: 

Cos'.  Tirr  mig  ei  mer;  jeg  kunde  glenmie  mig. 

Taenk  paa  dit  eget  Vel,  frist  mig  ei  laenger. 
Bru:  Bort,  svage  Mandl 

Cos:  Er  dette  muligt? 

Bru:  H0r  mig,  jeg  vil  tale. 

Skal  jeg  mig  b^ie  for  din  Vredes  Nykker? 

Og  skraemmes,  naar  en  gal  Mand  glor  paa  mig? 
Cos:  O  Guder,  Guder!  maa  jeg  taale  dette? 

Bru:  Dette,  ja  mer  end  det.     Stamp  kun  mod  Brodden, 

ras  kun,  indtil  dit  stolte  Hjerte  brister; 

lad  dine  Slaver  se  hvor  arg  du  er 

og  skjelve.    Jeg — skal  jeg  tilside  smutte? 

Jeg  gjjzire  Krus  for  dig?    Jeg  krumme  Ryg 

naar  det  behager  dig?     Ved  Gudeme! 

Du  selv  skal  svalge  al  din  Galdes  Gift, 

om  saa  du  brister;  thi  fra  denne  Dag 

jeg  bruger  dig  til  Moro,  ja  til  Latter, 

naar  du  er  ilsk. 

The  italicized  passages  show  that  the  influence  of  Foersom 
was  felt  in  more  than  one  scene.  It  would  be  easy  to  give  other 
instances. 


23 

After  all  this,  we  need  scarcely  more  than  mention  Lassen's 
MachethP-  published  in  1883.  The  usual  brief  note  at  the  end  of 
the  play  gives  the  usual  information  that,  out  of  regard  for  the 
purpose  for  which  the  translation  has  been  made,  certain  parts 
of  the  porter  scene  and  certain  speeches  by  Malcolm  in  Act  IV, 
Sc.  3  have  been  cut.  Readers  will  have  no  difficulty  in  picking 
them  out. 

Macbeth  is,  like  all  Lassen's  work,  dull  and  prosaic.  Like 
his  other  translations  from  Shakespeare,  it  has  never  become 
popular.  The  standard  translation  in  Norway  is  still  the 
Foersom-Lembcke,  a  trifle  nationalized  with  Norwegian  words  and 
phrases  whenever  a  new  acting  version  is  to  be  prepared.  And 
while  it  is  not  true  that  Lassen's  translations  are  merely  norva- 
gicized  editions  of  the  Danish,  it  is  true  that  they  are  often  so 
little  independent  of  them  that  they  do  not  deserve  to  supersede 
the  work  of  Foersom  and  Lembcke. 

G 

Norwegian  translations  of  Shakespeare  cannot,  thus  far,  be 
called  distinguished.  There  is  no  complete  edition  either  in 
Riksmaal  or  Landsmaal.  A  few  sonnets,  a  play  or  two,  a  scrap 
of  dialogue — Norway  has  httle  Shakespeare  translation  of  her 
own.  QuaUtatively,  the  case  is  somewhat  better.  Several 
of  the  renderings  we  have  considered  are  extremely  credit- 
able, though  none  of  them  can  be  compared  with  the  best  in 
Danish  or  Swedish.  It  is  a  grateful  task,  therefore,  to  call  atten- 
tion to  the  translations  by  Christen  Collin.  They  are  not  num- 
erous— only  eleven  short  fragments  published  as  illustrative 
material  in  his  school  edition  (Enghsh  text)  of  The  Merchant  of 
Venice—^  but  they  are  of  notable  quahty,and  they  save  the  Riksmaal 
literature  from  the  reproach  of  surrendering  completely  to  the 
Landsmaal  the  task  of  turning  Shakespeare  into  Norwegian. 
With  the  exception  of  a  few  Unes  from  Macbeth  and  Othello^  the 
selections  are  all  from  The  Merchant  of  Venice. 

^^  Macbeth.  Tragedie  af  William  Shakespeare.  Oversat  af  H.  Lassen. 
Udgivet  af  Selskabet  for  Folkeoplysningens  Fremme  som  andet  Tillaegshefte  til 
Folkevennen   for    1883.     Kristiania.     Gr^ndal   og   S0n. 

^  The  Merchant  of  Venice.  Med  Indledning  og  Anmaerkninger  ved  Christen 
Collin.  Kristiania.  1902.  (This,  of  course,  does  not  include  the  transla- 
tions of  the  sonnets  referred  to  below.) 


24 


A  good  part  of  Collin's  success  must  be  attributed  to  his 
intimate  familiarity  with  English.  The  fine  nuances  of  the  lan- 
guage do  not  escape  him,  and  he  can  use  it  not  with  precision 
merely  but  with  audacity  and  power.  Long  years  of  close  and 
sympathetic  association  with  the  Uterature  of  England  has  made 
English  well-nigh  a  second  mother  tongue  to  this  fine  and  appre- 
ciative critic.  But  he  is  more  than  a  critic.  He  has  more  than 
a  little  of  the  true  poet's  insight  and  the  true  poet's  gift  of  song. 
All  this  has  combined  to  give  us  a  body  of  translations  which,  for 
fine  felicity,  stand  unrivalled  in  Dano-Norwegian.  Many  of 
these  have  been  prepared  for  lecture  purposes  and  have  never 
been  printed.^  Only  a  few  have  been  perpetuated  in  this  text 
edition  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice.  We  shall  discuss  the  edition 
itself  below.  Our  concern  here  is  with  the  translations.  We 
remember  Lassen's  and  Lembcke's  opening  of  the  fifth  act.  Collin 
is  more  successful  than  his  countryman. 

Lor:  Hvor  Maanen  straaler!     I  en  nat  som  denne, 

da  milde  vindpust  kyssed  skovens  traer 

og  alting  var  saa  tyst,  i  slig  en  nat 

Troilus  kanske  steg  op  paa  Trojas  mure 

og  stunned  ud  sin  sjael  mod  Grsekerteltene 

hvor  Cressida  laa  den  nat. 
J^s:  I  slig  en  nat 

kom  Thisbe  angstfuldt  trippende  over  duggen, — 

saa  I0vens  skygge,  f^r  hun  saa  den  selv, 

og  lj2(b  forskraekket  bort. 
Lor:  I  slig  en  nat 

stod  Dido  med  en  vidjekvist  i  haand 

paa  havets  strand  og  vinkede  ^Eneas 

tilbage  til  Karthago. 
Jes:  I  slig  en  nat 

Medea  sanked  urter  som  foryngede 

den  gamle  ^sons  liv. 
Lor'  I  slig  en  nat 

stjal  Jessica  sig  fra  den  rige  J^de 

med  en  forfl0ien  elsker  fra  Venedig 

og  fandt  i  Belmont  ly. 
J^s:  I  en  saadan  nat 

svor  ung  Lorenzo  at  hun  var  ham  kjser 

og  stjal  med  mange  eder  hendes  hjerte, 

men  ikke  en  var  sand. 

^  I  have  seen  these  translations  in  the  typewritten  copies  which  Professor 
Collin  distributed  among  his  students. 


25 

Lor:  I  slig  en  nat 

skj^n  Jessica,  den  lille  heks,  bagtalte 
sin  elsker  og  han-  tilgav  hende  alt. 

"A  translation  of  this  passage,"  says  Collin,^  "can  hardly  be 
more  than  an  approximation,  but  its  inadequacy  will  only  empha- 
size the  beauty  of  the  original."  Nevertheless  we  have  here 
more  than  a  feeble  approximation.  It  is  not  equal  to  Shake- 
speare, but  it  is  good  Norwegian  poetry  and  as  faithful  as  trans- 
lation can  or  need  be.  It  is  difficult  to  refrain  from  giving  Portia's 
plea  for  mercy,  but  I  shall  give  instead  Collin's  striking  rendering 
of   Shylock's   arraignment   of   Antonio  r^^ 

Signor  Antonio,  mangen  en  gang  og  tit 
har  paa  Rialto  torv  I  skjaeldt  mig  ud 
for  mine  pengelaan  og  mine  renter.  .  .  . 
Jeg  bar  det  med  taalmodigt  skuldertraek, 
for  taalmod  er  jo  blit  vor  stanmies  merke. 

I  kalder  mig  en  vantro,  blodgrisk  hund 
og  spytter  paa  min  j^diske  gaberdin — 
hvorfor?  for  bnig  af  hvad  der  er  mit  eget ! 
Nu  synes  det,  I  traenger  til  min  hjaelp. 

Nei  virkelig?    I  kommer  nu  til  mig 
og  siger:  Shylock,  laan  os  penge, — I, 
som  siaengte  eders  slim  hen  paa  mit  skjaeg 
og  satte  foden  paa  mig,  som  I  spasndte, 
en  kj0ter  fra  Jer  d^r,  I  be'r  om  penge! 
Hvad  skal  jeg  svare  vel?    Skal  jeg  'ke  svare: 
Har  en  hund  penge?     Er  det  muligt,  at 
en  kj^ter  har  tre  tusinde  dukater? 
Eller  skal  jeg  bukke  dybt  og  i  traelletone 
med  saenket  rjrfst  og  imderdanig  hvisken 
formaele: 

"Min  herre,  I  spytted  paa  mig  sidste  onsdag, 
en  anden  dag  I  spaendte  mig,  en  tredje 
I  kaldte  mig  en  hund;  for  al  den  artighed 
jeg  laaner  Jer  saa  og  saa  mange  penge?  " 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  Collin  did  not  give  us  Shylock's 
still  more  impassioned  outburst  to  Salarino  in  Act  III.  He  would 
have  done  it  well. 

**  Collin,  op.  cit.,  Indledning,  XII. 

»  Collin,  op.  cU.,  Indledning,  XXVI.     (M.  of  V.,  1-3) 


26 

It  would  be  a  gracious  task  to  give  more  of  this  translator's 
work.  It  is,  slight  though  its  quantity,  a  genuine  contribution  to 
the  body  of  excellent  translation  literature  of  the  world.  I  shall 
quote  but  one  more  passage,  a  few  lines  from  Macbeth.^ 

"Det  tyktes  mig  som  h0rte  jeg  en  rjzlst; 

Sov  aldrig  mer!    Macbeth  har  myrdet  sj^vnen, 

den  skyldfri  s0vn,  som  10ser  sorgens  floke, 

hvert  daglivs  d0d,  et  bad  for  m^dig  mji^ie, 

balsam  for  sjaelesaar  og  alnaturens 

den  s0de  efterret, — dog  hovednaeringen 

ved  livets  gjasstebud.  .  .  . 
Lady  Macbeth :  Hvad  er  det,  du  mener? 

Macbeth:  "Sov  aldrig  mer,"  det  skreg  til  hele  huset. 

Glamis  har  myrdet  s^vnen,  derfor  Cawdor 

skal  aldrig  mer  faa  s0vn, — Macbeth, 

Macbeth  skal  aldrig  mer  faa  s0vn!" 

H 

We  have  hitherto  discussed  the  Norwegian  translations  of 
Shakespeare  in  almost  exact  chronological  order.  It  has  been 
possible  to  do  this  because  the  plays  have  either  been  translated 
by  a  single  man  and  issued  close  together,  as  in  the  case  of  Hartvig 
Lassen,  or  they  have  appeared  separately  from  the  hands  of  dif- 
ferent translators  and  at  widely  different  periods.  We  come  now, 
however,  to  a  group  of  translations  which,  although  the  work  of 
different  men  and  published  independently  from  1901  to  1912, 
nevertheless  belong  together.  They  are  all  in  Landsmaal  and 
they  represent  quite  clearly  an  effort  to  enrich  the  literature  of 
the  new  dialect  with  translations  from  Shakespeare.  To  do  this 
successfully  would,  obviously,  be  a  great  gain.  The  Maalstrsevere 
would  thereby  prove  the  capacity  of  their  tongue  for  the  highest, 
most  exotic  forms  of  literature.  They  would  give  to  it,  more- 
over, the  discipline  which  the  translation  of  foreign  classics  could 
not  fail  to  afford.  It  was  thus  a  renewal  of  the  missionary  spirit 
of  Ivar  Aasen.  And  behind  it  all  was  the  defiant  feeHng  that 
Norwegians  should  have  Shakespeare  in  Norwegian,  not  in  Danish 
or  bastard  Danish. 

The  spirit  of  these  translations  is  obvious  enough  from  the 
opening  sentence  of  Madhus'  preface  to  his  translation  of  Macbeth'}"^ 

^  Collin,  op.  ciL,  Indledning,  XXV.    Macbeth  II,  1. 
"Wilham  Shakespeare:  Macbeth.  I  norsk  Umskrift  ved  Olav  Madhus. 
Kristiania.  1901.  H.   Aschehoug  &  Co. 


27 

**I  should  hardly  have  ventured  to  publish  this  first  attempt  at 
a  Norwegian  translation  of  Shakespeare  if  competent  men  had 
not  urged  me  to  do  so."  It  is  frankly  declared  to  be  the  first 
Norwegian  translation  of  Shakespeare.  Hauge  and  Lassen,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  translator  of  1818,  are  curtly  dismissed  from 
Norwegian  Uterature.  They  belong  to  Denmark.  This  might  be 
true  if  it  were  not  for  the  bland  assumption  that  nothing  is  really 
Norwegian  except  what  is  written  in  the  dialect  of  a  particular 
group  of  Norwegians.  The  fundamental  error  of  the  "Maal- 
straevere"  is  the  inability  to  comprehend  the  simple  fact  that  lan- 
guage has  no  natural,  instinctive  connection  with  race.  An 
American  bom  in  America  of  Norwegian  parents  way,  if  his 
parents  are  energetic  and  circumstances  favorable,  leam  the 
tongue  of  his  father  and  mother,  but  his  natural  speech,  the  medium 
he  uses  easily,  his  real  mother-tongue,  will  be  English.  Will  it 
be  contended  that  this  American  has  lost  anything  in  spiritual 
power  or  hnguistic  facility?  Quite  the  contrary.  The  use  of 
Danish  in  Norway  has  had  the  unfortunate  effect  of  stirring 
up  a  bitter  war  between  the  two  literary  languages  or  the  two 
dialects  of  the  same  language,  but  it  has  imposed  no  bonds  on  the 
hterary  or  intellectual  powers  of  a  large  part  of  the  people,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  these  people  have  long  used  the  language 
as  their  own.  And  because  they  live  in  Norway  they  have  made 
the  speech  Norwegian.  Despite  its  Danish  origin,  Dano-Nor- 
wegian  is  today  as  truly  Norwegian  as  any  other  Norwegian 
dialect,  and  in  its  literary  form  it  is,  in  a  sense,  more  Norwegian 
than  the  literary  Landsmaal,  for  the  language  of  Bj^mson  has 
grown  up  gradually  on  Norwegian  soil;  the  language  of  Ivar 
Aasen  is  not  yet  accUmatized. 

For  these  reasons  it  will  not  do  to  let  Madhus'  calm  assertion 
go  unchallenged.  The  fact  is  that  to  a  large  part  of  the  Norwegian 
people  Lassen's  translations  represent  merely  a  shghtly  Dani- 
cized  form  of  their  own  language,  while  to  the  same  people  the 
language  of  Madhus  is  at  least  as  foreign  as  Swedish.  This  is 
not  the  place  for  a  discussion  of  "Sprogstriden.'*  We  may  give 
full  recognition  to  Landsmaal  without  subscribing  to  the  creed  of 
enthusiasts.  And  it  is  still  easier  to  give  credit  to  the  excellence 
of  the  Shakespeare  translations  in  Landsmaal  without  concerning 
ourselves  with  the  partisanship  of  the  translator.  What  shall 
we  say,  then,  of  the  Macbeth  of  Olav  Madhus? 


28 

First,  that  it  is  decidedly  good.  The  tragedy  of  Macbeth  is 
stark,  grim,  stern,  and  the  vigorous,  resonant  Norwegian  fits 
admirably.  There  is  Httle  opportunity,  as  in  Aasen's  selections 
from  Romeo  and  Juliet  for  those  unfortunate  contrasts  between 
the  homespun  of  the  modem  dialect  and  the  exquisite  silk  and 
gossamer  of  the  vocabulary  of  romance  of  a  "cultured  language." 
Madhus  has  been  successful  in  rendering  into  Landsmaal  scenes 
as  different  as  the  witch-scene,  the  porter-scene  (which  Lassen 
omitted  for  fear  it  would  contaminate  the  minds  of  school  children), 
the  exquisite  lines  of  the  King  and  Banquo  on  their  arrival  at 
Macbeth's  castle,  and  Macbeth's  last,  tragic  soliloquy  when  he 
learns  of  the  death  of  his  queen. 

Duncan  and  Banquo  arrive  at  the  castle  of  Macbeth  and  Dun- 
can speaks  those  lovely  lines:  "This  castle  has  a  pleasant  seat," 
etc.     Madhus  translates: 

Duncan:  Ho  hev  eit  fagert  laegje,  denne  borgi, 

og  lufti  lyar  seg  og  gjer  seg  smeiki 

aat  vaare  glade  sansar. 
Banquo:  Sumar-gje  sten, 

den  tempel-kjaere  svala,  vitnar  med, 

at  himlens  ande  blakrar  smeikin  her, 

med  di  at  ho  so  gjeme  her  vil  byggje. 

Det  finst  kje  sule  eller  takskjeggs  livd 

og  ikkje  voll  hell  vigskar,  der  ei  ho 

hev  hengt  si  lette  seng  og  bame-vogge. 

Der  ho  mest  bur  og  braeer,  hev  eg  merkt  meg, 

er  lufti  herleg. 

This  is  as  light  and  luminous  as  possible.  Contrast  it  with 
the  slow,  solemn  tempo  of  the  opening  of  Act  I,  Sc.  7 — Macbeth's 
"If  it  were  done  when  *tis  done,"  etc. 

Um  det  var  gjort,  naar  d'er  gjort,  var  det  vaei, 

um  det  vart  snart  gjort;  kunde  Ij^ynmordsverke, 

stengje  og  binde  alle  vonde  fylgdir 

og,  med  aa  faa  burt  honom,  naa  sitt  maal, 

so  denne  eine  st^yten  som  maa  til, 

vart  enden,  alt,  det  siste  som  det  fyrste 

i  tidi  her — den  havsens  0yr  og  bode 

me  sit  paa  no — , — med  live  som  kjem  etter 

det  fekk  daa  vaage  voni.     Men  i  slikt 

vert  domen  sagd  alt  her.     Blodtankane, 

me  el,  kjem  vaksne  att  og  piner  oss, 

som  gav  deim  liv  og  fostra  deim;  pg  drykken, 


29 

som  me  hev  blanda  eiter  i  aat  andre, 
vert  eingong  uta  miskunn  bodin  fram 
av  rettferds  hand  aat  vaare  eigne  munnar. 

The  deep  tones  of  a  language  born  in  mountains  and  along 
fjords  finely  re-echo  the  dark  broodings  in  Macbeth's  soul. 

Or  take  still  another  example,  the  witch-scene  in  Act  IV.  It 
opens  in  Madhus*  version: 

Fyrste  Heks:  Tri  gong  mjava  brandut  katt. 

Andre  Heks:  Tri  og  ein  gong  bust-svin  peip. 

Tridje  Heks:  Val-ramn  skrik.     D'er  tid,  d'er  tid. 

Fyrste  Heks:  Ring  um  gryta  gjeng  me  tri; 

sleng  forgiftigt  seid — mang  i. 
Gyrme-gro,  som  under  stein 
dagar  tredive  og  ein 
sveita  eiter,  lat  og  leid, 
koke  fyrst  i  vaaro  seid. 
Alle:  Tvifaldt  trael  og  m^da  duble; 

brand  frase,  seid  buble! 
Andre  Heks:  M0yrkj|z(t  av  ein  myr-orm  kald 

so  i  gryta  koke  skal. 
0dle-augo,  skinnveng-haar, 
hundetunge,  froskelaar, 
sl^ve-brodd,  firfisle-sv6rd, 
ule-veng  og  lyngaal-sp6rd 
til  eit  seid  som  sinn  kann  rengje 
hel-sodd-heitt  seg  saman  mengje! 

This  is  not  only  accurate;  it  is  a  decidedly  successful  imitation 
of  the  movement  of  the  original.  Madhus  has  done  a  first-rate 
piece  of  work.  The  language  of  witch-craft  is  as  international 
as  the  language  of  science.  But  only  a  poet  can  turn  it  to  poetic 
use. 

Not  quite  so  successful  is  Macbeth's  soliloquy  when  the  death 
of  Lady  Macbeth  is  announced  to  him: 

Det  skuld'  ho  drygt  med. 
Aat  slikt  eit  ord  var  komi  betre  stund. — 
"I  morgo"  og  "i  morgo"  og  "i  morgo," 
slik  sig  det  smaatt  fram  etter,  dag  for  dag, 
til  siste  ord  i  livsens  sogubok; 
og  kvart  "i  gaar"  hev  daarer  vegen  lyst 
til  dust  og  daude. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  just  where  the  fault  lies,  but  the  thing 
seems  uncouth,  a  trifle   too  colloquial  and  peasant-like.    The 


30 

fault  may  be  the  translator's,  but  something  must  also  be  charged 
to  his  medium.  The  passage  in  Shakespeare  is  simple  but  it 
breathes  distinction.  The  Landsmaal  version  is  merely  collo- 
quial, even  banal.    One  fine  line  there  is: 

"til  siste  ord  i  livsens  sogubok." 

But  the  rest  suggests  too  plainly  the  limitations  of  an  uncultivated 
speech. 

In  1905  came  a  translation  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice  by  Mad- 
hus,^^  and,  uniform  with  it,  a  little  book — Soga  um  Kaupmannen  i 
Venetia  (The  Story  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice)  in  which  the  action 
of  the  play  is  told  in  simple  prose.  In  the  appendatory  notes  the 
translator  acknowledges  his  obligation  to  Ame  Garborg — "Arne 
Garborg  hev  gjort  mig  framifraa  god  hjelp,  her  som  med  Macbeth. 
Takk  og  aere  hev  han. " 

What  we  have  said  of  Macbeth  applies  with  no  less  force  here. 
The  translation  is  more  than  merely  creditable — it  is  distinctly 
good.  And  certainly  it  is  no  small  feat  to  have  translated  Shake- 
speare in  all  his  richness  and  fulness  into  what  was  only  fifty  years 
ago  a  rustic  and  untrained  dialect.  It  is  the  best  answer  possible 
to  the  charge  often  made  against  Landsmaal  that  it  is  utterly 
unable  to  convey  the  subtle  thought  of  high  and  cosmopolitan 
culture.  This  was  the  indictment  of  Bj^rnson,^^  of  philologists 
like  Torp,^°  and  of  a  Uterary  critic  like  Hjalmar  Chris tensen.^^ 
The  last  named  speaks  repeatedly  of  the  feebleness  of  Landsmaal 
when  it  swerves  from  its  task  of  depicting  peasant  life.  His  criti- 
cism of  the  poetry  of  Ivar  Mortensen  is  one  long  variation  of  this 
theme — the  immaturity  of  Landsmaal.  All  of  this  is  true.  A 
finished  literary  language,  even  when  its  roots  go  deep  into  a 
spoken  language,  cannot  be  created  in  a  day.  It  must  be  en- 
riched and  elaborated,  and  it  must  gain  flexibihty  from  constant 
and  varied  use.  It  is  precisely  this  apprentice  stage  that  Lands- 
maal is  now  in.  The  finished  "Kultursprache"  will  come  in 
good  time.    No  one  who  has  read  Garborg  will  deny  that  it  can 

28  William  Shakespeare — Kaupmannen  i  Venetia.  Paa  Norsk  ved  Olav 
Madhus.     Oslo.  1905. 

29Bj0m.son:  Vort  Sprog. 

'"Torp.  Samtiden,  Vol.  XIX  (1908),  p.  408. 

'^  Vor  Literatur. 


31 

convey  the  subtlest  emotions;  and  Madhus*  translations  of  Shake- 
speare are  further  evidence  of  its  possibilities. 

That  Madhus  does  not  measure  up  to  his  original  will  astonish 
no  one  who  knows  Shakespeare  translations  in  other  languages. 
Even  Tieck's  and  Schlegel's  German,  or  Hagberg's  Swedish,  or 
Foersom's  Danish  is  no  substitute  for  Shakespeare.  Whether  or 
not  Madhus  measures  up  to  these  is  not  for  me  to  decide,  but  I 
feel  very  certain  that  he  will  not  suffer  by  comparison  with  the 
Danish  versions  by  Wolff,  Meisling,  Wosemose,  or  even  Lembcke, 
or  with  the  Norwegian  versions  of  Hauge  and  Lassen.  The 
feeling  that  one  gets  in  reading  Madhus  is  not  that  he  is  uncouth, 
still  less  inaccurate,  but  that  in  the  presence  of  great  imaginative 
richness  he  becomes  cold  and  barren.  We  felt  it  less  in  the  tragedy 
of  Macbeth,  where  romantic  color  is  absent;  we  feel  it  strongly  in 
The  Merchant  of  Venice,  where  the  richness  of  romance  is  instinct 
in  every  Hne.  The  opening  of  the  play  offers  a  perfect  illustration. 
In  answer  to  Antonio's  complaint  "In  sooth  I  know  not  why  I 
am  so  sad,"  etc,  Salarino  rephes  in  these  stately  and  sounding 
lines: 

Your  mind  is  tossing  on  the  ocean; 

There,  where  your  argosies,  with  portly  sail, — 

Like  signiors  and  rich  burghers  of  the  flood, 

Or,  as  it  were,  the  pageants  of  the  sea, — 

Do  overpeer  the  petty  traflSckers 

That  curt'sy  to  them,  do  them  reverence. 

As  they  fly  by  them  with  their  woven  wings. 

The  picture  becomes  very  much  less  stately  in  Norwegian 
folk-speech: 

Paa  storehave  huskar  hugen  din, 

der  dine  langferd-skip  med  staute  segl 

som  hovdingar  og  herremenn  paa  sj0 

i  drusteferd,  aa  kalle,  gagar  seg 

paa  baara  millom  kraemarskutur  smaa*, 

som  nigjer  aat  deim  og  som  helsar  audmjukt 

naar  dei  med  vovne  vengir  framimi  stryk. 

The  last  two  Unes  are  adequate,  but  the  rest  has  too  much 
the  flavor  of  Ole  and  Peer  discussing  the  fate  of  their  fishing- 
smacks.  Somewhat  more  successful  is  the  translation  of  the  open- 
ing of  Act  V,  doubtless  because  it  is  simpler,  less  full  of  remote  and 
sophisticated  imagery.  By  way  of  comparison  with  Lassen  and 
Collin,  it  may  be  interesting  to  have  it  at  hand. 


32 

Lori  Ovfagert  lyser  maanen.     Slik  ei  natt, 

daa  milde  vindar  kysste  Ijuve  tre 

so  lindt  at  knapt  dei  susa,  slik  ei  natt 

steig  Troilus  upp  paa  Troja-murane 

og  sukka  saali  si  til  Greklands  telt, 

der  Kressida  laag  den  natti. 
Jes'.  Slik  ei  natt 

gjekk  Thisbe  hugraedd  yvi  doggvaat  voll 

og  10veskuggen  saag  fyrr  10  va  kom; 

og  raedd  ho  der-fraa  r^mde. 
Lor:  Slik  ei  natt 

stod  Dido  med  ein  siljutein  i  hand 

paa  villan  strand  og  vinka  venen  sin 

tilbake  til  Kartago. 
Jes:  Slik  ei  natt 

Medea  troUdoms-urtir  fann,  til  upp 

aa  yngje  gamle  ^Eson. 
Lor:  Slik  ei  natt 

stal  Jessika  seg  ut  fraa  judens  hus 

og  med  ein  fark  til  festarmann  for  av 

so  langt  som  hit  til  Belmont. 
Jes:  Slik  ei  natt 

svor  ung  Lorenso  henne  elskhugs  eid 

og  hjarta  hennar  stal  med  fagre  ord 

som  ikkje  aatte  sanning. 
Lor:  SUk  ei  natt 

leksa  ven'  Jessika  som  eit  lite  troll 

upp  for  sin  kjaerst,  og  han  tilgav  ho. 
Jes:  I  natteleik  eg  heldt  nok  ut  med  deg, 

um  ingin  kom;  men  hyss,  eg  h^yrer  stig. 

But  when  Madhus  turns  from  such  flights  of  high  poetry  to 
low  comedy,  his  success  is  complete.  It  may  be  a  long  time 
before  Landsmaal  can  successfully  render  the  mighty  line  of 
Marlowe,  or  the  manifold  music  of  Shakespeare,  but  we  should 
expect  it  to  give  with  perfect  verity  the  language  of  the  people. 
And  when  we  read  the  scenes  in  which  Lancelot  Gobbo  figures, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  here  Landsmaal  is  at  home.  Note,  for 
example.  Act  II,  Sc.  1 : 

"Samvite  mitt  vil  visst  ikkje  hjelpe  meg  med  aa  rjime  fraa  denne  juden, 
husbond  min.  Fenden  stend  her  attum  dlbogen  min  og  segjer  til  meg : "  Gobbo, 
Lanselot  Gobbo;  gode  Lanselot,  eller  gode  Gobbo,  bruka  leggine;  tak  hyven; 
drag  din  veg."  Samvite  segjer:  "nei,  agta  deg,  aerlige  Gobbo,"  eller  som  fyr 
sagt:  "aerlige  Lanselot  Gobbo,  rjzJm  ikkje;  set  deg  mot  riming  med  haelog  taa!" 
Men  fenden,  den  stormodige,  bed  meg  pakka  meg;  "fremad  mars!"  segjer 


33 

fenden;  "legg  i  veg!"  segjer  fenden;  "for  alt  som  heilagt  er,"  segjer  fenden; 
"vaaga  paa;  drag  i  veg!"  Men  samvite  heng  un  halsen  paa  hjarta  mitt  og 
talar  visdom  til  meg;  "min  aerlige  ven  Lanselot,  som  er  son  av  ein  aerlig  mann, 
eller  rettare:  av  eit  aerligt  kvende;  for  skal  eg  segja  sant,  so  teva  det  eit  grand 
svidt  av  far  min;  han  hadde  som  ein  altaat-snev;  naah;  samvite  segjer:  "du 
skal  ikkje  fantegaa."  "Du  skal  fantegaa,"  segjer  fenden;  "nei;  ikkje  fan- 
tegaa,"  segjer  samvite.  "Du  samvit,"  segjer  eg,  "du  raader  meg  godt." 
"Du  fenden,  segjer  eg,  "du  raader  meg  godt."  Fylgde  eg  no  samvite,  so 
vart  eg  verande  hjaa  juden,  som — forlate  mi  synd — er  noko  som  ein  devel; 
og  r0mer  eg  fraa  juden,  so  lyder  eg  fenden,  som — ^beintfram  sagt — er  develen 
sj01v.  Visst  og  sannt:  juden  er  sjjzilve  develen  i  kamition;  men  etter  mitt 
vit  er  samvite  mit  vitlaust,  som  vil  raade  meg  til  aa  verta  verande  hjaa  juden. 
Fenden  gjev  meg  den  venlegaste  raadi;  eg  tek  kuten,  fenden;  haelane  mine  stend 
til  din  kommando;  eg  tek  kuten." 

This  has  the  genuine  ring.  The  brisk  colloquial  vocabulary 
fits  admirably  the  brilliant  sophistry  of  the  argument.  And  both 
could  come  only  from  Launcelot  Gobbo.  For  "the  simplicity 
of  the  folk"  is  one  of  those  fictions  which  romantic  closet  study 
has  woven  around  the  study  of  "the  people." 

Of  the  little  re-telling  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice^  "Soga  um 
Kaupmannen  i  Venetia"  ^^  which  appeared  in  the  same  year,  nothing 
need  be  said.  It  is  a  simple,  unpretentious  summary  of  the  story 
with  a  certain  charm  which  simplicity  and  naivete  always  give. 
No  name  appears  on  the  title-page,  but  we  are  probably  safe  in 
attributing  it  to  Madhus,  for  in  the  note  to  Kaupmannen  i  Vene- 
tia we  read:  "I,  Soga  um  Kaupmannen  i  Venetia  hev  ein  sjf^lve 
forteljingi  som  stykkji  er  bygt  paa. " 

I 

In  the  year  1903,  midway  between  the  publication  of  Madhus* 
Macbeth  and  the  appearance  of  his  Kaupmannen  i  Venetia^  there 
appeared  in  the  chief  literary  magazine  of  the  Landsmaal  move- 
ment, "Syn  og  Segn,"  a  translation  of  the  fairy  scenes  of  A  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream  by  Erik  Eggen.^  This  is  the  sort  of  material 
which  we  should  expect  Landsmaal  to  render  well.  Oberon  and 
Titania  are  not  greatly  different  from  Nissen  and  Alverne  in 
Norwegian  fairy  tales,  and  the  translator  had  but  to  fancy  himself 
in  Alveland  to  be  in  the  enchanted  wood  near  Athens.  The 
spirit  of  the  fairy  scenes  in  Shakespeare  is  akin  to  the  spirit  of 

^^  Soga  um  Kaupmannen  i   Venetia.    Oslo,   1905. 

^  Alveliv.  Eller  Shakespeare's  Midsumarnatt  Draum  ved  Erik  Eggen. 
Syn  og  Segn,  1903.    No.  3-6,  pp.  (105-114);  248-259. 


34 

Asbj^mson's  "Huldre-Eventyr."  There  is  in  them  a  community 
of  feeUng,  of  fancy,  of  ideas.  And  whereas  Madhus  had  difficulty 
with  the  sunny  romance  of  Italy,  Eggen  in  the  story  of  Puck 
found  material  ready  to  hand.  The  passage  translated  begins  Act 
II,  Sc.  1,  and  runs  through  Act  II  to  Oberon's  words  immediately 
before  the  entrance  of  Helen  and  Demetrius: 

But  who  comes  here?    I  am  invisible; 
And  I  will  overhear  their  conference. 

Then  the  translator  omits  everything  until  Puck  re-enters  and 
Oberon  greets  him  with  the  words: 

Velkomon,  vandrar;  hev  du  blomen  der? 
(Hast  thou  the  flower  there?    Welcome,  wanderer.) 

Here  the  translation  begins  again  and  goes  to  the  exit  of  Oberon 
and  the  entrance  of  Lysander  and  Hermia.  This  is  all  in  the 
first  selection  in  Syn  og  segn,  No.  3. 

In  the  sixth  number  of  the  same  year  (1903)  the  work  is  con- 
tinued.   The  translation  here  begins  with  Puck's  words  (Act  III) : 

What  hempen  homespuns  have  we  swaggering  here? 
So  near  the  cradle  of  the  fairy  queen? 
What,  a  play  toward!    I'll  be  an  auditor; 
An  actor,  too,  if  I  see  cause. 

Then  it  breaks  off  again  and  resumes  with  the  entrance  of  Puck 
and  Bottom  adorned  with  an  ass's  head.  Quince's  words:  "O 
monstrous!  O  strange!"  are  given  and  then  Puck's  speech:  "I'll 
follow  you:  I'll  lead  you  about  a  round."  After  this  there  is  a 
break  till  Bottom's  song: 

"The  ousel  cock,  so  black  of  hue,"  etc. 

And  now  all  proceeds  without  break  to  the  Hail  of  the  last  elf 
called  in  to  serve  Bottom,  but  the  following  speeches  between 
Bottom  and  the  fairies.  Cobweb,  Mustardseed  and  Peaseblossom, 
are  all  cut,  and  the  scene  ends  with  Titania's  speech: 

"Come,  wait  upon  him,  lead  him  to  my  bower,"  etc. 
Act  III,  Sc.  2,  follows  immediately,  but  the  translation  ends  with  the 
first  line  of  Oberon's  speech  to  Puck  before  the  entrance  of  Deme- 
trius and  Hermia: 

"This  falls  out  better  than  I  could  devise." 
and  resumes  with  Oberon's  words: 


35 

"I'll  to  my  queen  and  beg  her  Indian  boy," 

and  includes  (with  the  omission  of  the  last  two  lines)  Oberon's 
speech  beginning: 

"But  we  are  spirits  of  another  sort." 

Eggen  then  jumps  to  the  fourth  act  and  translates  Titania's 
opening  speech.  After  this  there  is  a  break  till  the  entrance  of 
Oberon.  The  dialogue  between  Titania  and  Oberon  is  given 
faithfully,  except  that  in  the  speech  in  which  Oberon  removes  the 
incantation,  all  the  lines  referring  to  the  wedding  of  Theseus  are 
omitted;  the  speeches  of  Puck,  Oberon,  and  Titania  immediately 
preceding  the  entrance  of  Theseus,  Hippolyta,  Egeus,  and  their 
train,  are  rendered. 

From  Act  V  the  entire  second  scene  is  given. 

Eggen  has,  then,  attempted  to  give  a  translation  into  Nor- 
wegian Landsmaal  of  the  fairy  scenes  in  A  Midsummer  Night*s 
Dream.  He  has  confined  himself  severely  to  his  task  as  thus 
limited,  even  cutting  out  lines  from  the  middle  of  speeches  when 
these  lines  refer  to  another  part  of  the  action  or  to  another  group 
of  characters.  What  we  have  is,  then,  a  fragment,  to  be  defended 
only  as  an  experiment,  and  successful  in  proportion  as  it  renders 
single  lines,  speeches,  or  songs  well.  On  the  whole,  Eggen  has 
been  successful.  There  is  a  vigor  and  directness  in  his  style 
which,  indeed,  seem  rather  Norwegian  than  Shakespearean,  but 
which  are,  nevertheless,  entirely  convincing.  One  is  scarcely 
conscious  that  it  is  a  translation.  And  in  the  lighter,  more  roman- 
tic passages  Eggen  has  hit  the  right  tone  with  entire  fidelity.  His 
knowledge  is  sound.  His  notes,  though  exhibiting  no  special 
learning,  show  clearly  that  he  is  abreast  of  modem  scholarship. 
Whenever  his  rendering  seems  daring,  he  accompanies  it  with 
a  note  that  clearly  and  briefly  sets  forth  why  a  particular  word 
or  phrase  was  chosen.  The  standard  Danish,  Norwegian,  and 
German  translations  are  known  to  him,  and  occasionally  he  bor- 
rows from  them.  But  he  knows  exactly  why  he  does  borrow.  His 
scholarship  and  his  real  poetic  power  combine  to  give  us  a  trans- 
lation of  which  Landsmaal  literature  has  every  reason  to  be  proud. 
We  need  give  only  a  few  passages.  I  like  the  rollicking  humor  of 
Puck's  words: 

Kor  torer  uhengt  kjeltrings  pakk  daa  skvaldre 
so  naere  vogga  hennar  alvemor? 


36 


Kva? — skodespel  i  gjerdom?     Eg  vil  sjaa  paa — 
kann  hende  spele  med,  um  so  eg  synest. 

And  a  little  farther  on  when  Bottom,  adorned  with  his  ass's  head, 
returns  with  Puck,  and  the  simple  players  flee  in  terror  and  Puck 
exclaims: 

Eg  fylgjer  dykk  og  f0rer  lundt  i  tunn, 

i  myr  og  busk  og  ormegras  og  klunger, 

og  snart  eg  er  ein  best  og  snart  ein  bund, 

ein  gris,  ein  mannvond  bj0rn,  snart  flammetungur, 

og  kneggjer,  g0yr  og  ryler,  murrar,  brenn, 

som  best,  bund,  gris,  bj0rn,  varme — eitt  um  senn. 

we  give  our  unqualified  admiration  to  the  skill  of  the  translator. 
Or,  compare  Titania's  instructions  to  the  faries  to  serve  her  Bottom: 

Ver  venlege  imot  og  t6n  den  berren ! 

Dans  vaent  for  augo  bans,  bopp  der  ban  gjeng! 

Gjev  aprikos  og  frukt  fraa  blaabaerlid, 

ei  korg  med  druvur,  fikjur,  morbaer  i ! 

Stel  bonningsekken  bort  fraa  annsam  bi ! 

Til  Nattljos  bennar  voksbein  slitt  i  fleng, — 

kveik  deim  paa  jonsok-orm  i  buskebeng ! 

Lys  for  min  ven,  naar  ban  vil  gaa  i  seng. 

Fraa  maala  fivreld  slit  ein  fager  veng, 

og  fraa  bans  augo  maaneljose  steng. 

Hels  bonom  so,  og  kyss  til  bonom  sleng. 
Fyrste  Alven:  Menneskje. 

A  ndre  A  hen :  Heil  deg ! 

Tridje  Alven:  Heil! 

Fjorde  A  hen :  Heil  og  sael ! 

Titania:  T6n  bonom  so!    Leid  bonom  til  mitt  rom ! 

Eg  tykkjer  maanen  er  i  augo  vaat; 

og  naar  ban  graet,  daa  graet  kvar  btin  blom, 

og  minnest  daa  ei  tilnjziydd  dygd  med  graat. 

Legg  bandi  paa  bans  munn!     Og  stilt  far  aat! 

It  is,  however,  in  his  exquisitely  deHcate  rendering  of  the 
songs  of  this  play — certainly  one  of  the  most  difficult  tasks  that  a 
translator  can  undertake — that  Eggen  has  done  his  best  work. 
There  is  more  than  a  distant  echo  of  the  original  in  this  happy 
translation  of  Bottom's  song : 

Han  trostefar  med  svarte  kropp 

og  nebb  som  appelsin, 
og  gjerdesmett  med  litin  topp 

og  stare  med  tone  fin. 


37 


Og  finke,  sporv  og  lerke  graa 

og  gauk, — ho,  ho!^  han  laer, 
so  tidt  han  gjev  sin  naeste  smaa; 

men  aldri  svar  han  faer. 

The  marvelous  richness  of  the  Norwegian  dialects  in  the  vocab- 
ulary of  folklore  is  admirably  brought  out  in  the  song  with  which 
the  fairies  sing  Titania  to  sleep  :^ 


Ein  alv: 


Spettut  orm  med  tiingur  tvo, 
kvass  bust-igel,  krjup  kje  her! 
01e,  staal-orm,  fara  no, 
kom  vaar  alvemor  ei  naer! 


A  lie  alvene: 


Maaltrost,  syng  med  tone  full 
du  med  oss  vaart  bysselull  : 
bysse,  bysse,  bysselull, 

ei  maa  vald, 

ei  heksegald 
faa  vaar  dronning  ottefulls; 
so  god  natt  og  byseluU. 


Ein  annan  alv:  Ingi  kongrov  vil  me  sjaa, 

langbeint  vevekjering,  gakk! 
Svart  tordivel,  burt  her  fraa, 
burt  med  snigil  og  med  makk! 

AUe  alvene:  Maaltrost,  syng  med  tone  full 

du  med  oss  vaart  bysselull: 
bysse,  bysse,  bysselull, 
bysse,  bysse,  bysselull, 

ei  maa  vald, 

ei  heksegald 
faa  vaar  dronning  otteful; 
so  god  natt  og  bysselull. 

It  is  easy  to  draw  upon  this  fragment  for  further  examples  of 
felicitous  translation.  It  is  scarcely  necessary,  however.  What 
has  been  given  is  sufficient  to  show  the  rare  skill  of  the  translator. 
He  is  so  fortunate  as  to  possess  in  a  high  degree  what  Bayard 
Taylor  calls  "secondary  inspiration, "  without  which  the  work  of 
a  translator  becomes  a  soulless  mass  and  frequently  degenerates 
into  the  veriest  drivel.  Erik  Eggen's  Alveliv  deserves  a  place  in 
the  same  high  company  with  Taylor's  Faust. 

'♦The  translator  explains  in  a  note  the  pun  in  the  original. 
»Act  II.  Sc.  2. 


38 

Nine  years  later,  in  1912,  Eggen  returned  to  the  task  he  had 
left  unfinished  with  the  fairy  scenes  in  Syn  og  Segn  and  gave  a 
complete  translation  of  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream.  In  a  little 
prefatory  note  he  acknowledges  his  indebtedness  to  Ame  Garborg, 
who  critically  examined  the  manuscript  and  gave  valuable  sugges- 
tions and  advice.  The  introduction  itself  is  a  restatement  in 
two  pages  of  the  Shakespeare-Essex-Leicester-Elizabeth  story. 
Shakespeare  recalls  the  festivities  as  he  saw  them  in  youth  when 
he  writes  in  Act  II,  Sc.  2 : 

thou  rememberest 
Since  once  I  sat  upon  a  promontory, 
And  heard  a  mermaid  upon  a  dolphin's  back,  etc. 

And  it  is  Elizabeth  he  has  in  mind  when,  in  the  same  scene,  we 
read: 

That  very  time  I  saw,  but  thou  could'st  not, 
Flying  between  the  cold  moon  and  the  earth, 
Cupid  all  armed,  etc. 

All  of  this  is  given  by  way  of  background,  and  it  is  of  little  impor- 
tance to  the  general  readers  what  modem  Shakespeare  scholars 
may  say  of  it. 

Eggen  has  not  been  content  merely  to  reprint  in  the  complete 
translation  his  eailier  work  from  Syn  og  Segn^  but  he  has  made 
a  thoroughgoing  revision.^^  It  cannot  be  said  to  be  altogether 
happy.  Frequently,  of  course,  a  line  or  phrase  is  improved  or  an 
awkward  turn  straightened  out,  but,  as  a  whole,  the  first  version 
surpasses  the  second  not  in  poetic  beauty  merely,  but  in  accuracy. 
Compare,  for  example,  the  two  renderings  of  the  opening  lines: 

Syn  og  Segn— 1903  Revision  of  1912 

Nissen:  Tuften: 
Kor  no  ande!  seg,  kvar  skal  du  av?    Hallo!  Kvar  skal  du  av,  du  vesle  vette? 

Alven:  Alven: 

Yver  dal,  yver  fjell,  Yver  dal,  yver  fjell, 

gjenom  vatn,  gjenom  eld,  gjenom  vatn,  gjenom  eld, 

yver  gras,  yver  grind,  yver  gras,  yver  grind, 

gjenom  klunger  so  stinn,  gjenom  klunger  so  stinn, 

yver  alt  eg  smett  og  kliv  alle  stad'r  eg  smett  og  kliv 

sn^ggare  enn  maanen  sviv;  sn^ggare  enn  maanen  sviv; 

eg  i  gras  dei  ringar  doggar,  eg  dogge  maa 

'•William  Shakespeare — Jonsok  Draumen — Eit  Gamenspel.  Paa  Norsk 
ved  Erik  Eggen.    Oslo,  1912. 


39 


der  vaar  mori  dans  seg  voggar. 
Hennar  vakt  mirn  symrur  vera, 
gyllne  klade  mim  dei  bera; 
sjaa  dei  stjemur  alvar  gav  deim! 
Derfraa  kjem  all  angen  av  deim. 
Aa  sanke  dogg — til  de  eg  kom; 
ei  perle  fester  eg  til  kvar  ein  blom. 
Far  vel,  du  ande-st)rv^ing !    Eg  maa 

vekk; 
vaar  dronning  er  her  ho  paa 

fljugand'  flekk. 


dei  grji^ne  straa 

som  vaar  dronning  dansar  paa. 
Kvart  nykelband 
er  adelsmann, 

med  ordenar  dei  glime  kann; 
kvar  blank  rubin, 
paa  bringa  skin, 

utsender  ange  fin. 

Doggdropar  blanke 
skal  eg  sanke, 
mange,  mange, 
dei  skal  hange 
kvar  av  hennar 
adels-mennar 

glimande  i  ^yra. 

Now,  admitting  that 

eg  dogge  maa 
dei  grj^ne  straa 
som  vaar  dronning  dansar  paa. 

is  a  better  translation  than  in  the  Syn  og  Segn  text — ^which  is 
doubtful  enough — it  is  difficult  to  see  what  can  be  the  excuse  for 
such  pompous  banality  as 

Kvart  nykelband 
er  adelsmann, 
med  ordenar  dei  glime  kann; 

the  first  version  is  not  above  reproach  in  this  respect.    It  might 
fairly  be  asked:  where  does  Eggen  get  his  authority  for 
sjaa  dei  stjemur  alvar  gav  deim! 

But  the  lines  are  not  loaded  down  with  imagery  which  is  both 
misleading  and  in  bad  taste.  Eggen  should  have  left  his  first 
version  unchanged.     Such  uninspired  prose  as: 

kvar  blank  nibin, 
paa  bringa  skin, 
utsender  ange  fin. 

have  to  the  ears  of  most  Norwegians  the  atmosphere  of  the  back 
stairs.     Better   the   unadorned  version  of   1903. 

In  the  passage  following,  Robin's  reply,  the  revised  version 
is  probably  better  than  the  first,  thought  here  seems  to  be  little  to 
choose  between  them.  But  in  the  fairy's  next  speech  the  trans- 
lator has  gone  quite  beyond  his  legitimate  province,  and  has 


40 

improved  Shakespeare  by  a  picture  from  Norwegian  folklore. 
Following   the   lines   of   the   original: 

Misleade  nightwanderers,  laughing  at  their  harm, 
Eggen  has  added  this  homelike  conception  in  his  translation: 

som  6g  kann  draga  f6r  til  hest  og  naut, 
naar  berre  du  kvar  torsdag  faer  din  grant. 

Shakespeare  in  Elysium  must  have  regretted  that  he  was  not  born 
in  the  mountains  of  Norway! 

And  when  Robin,  in  the  speech  that  follows,  tells  of  his  antics, 
one  wonders  just  a  Uttle  what  has  been  gained  by  the  revision. 
The  same  query  is  constantly  suggested  to  anyone  who  compares 
the  two  texts. 

Nor  do  1  think  that  the  lyrics  have  gained  by  the  revision. 
Just  a  single  comparison — the  lullaby  in  the  two  versions.  We 
have  given  it  above  as  published  in  Syn  og  Segn.  The  following 
is  its  revised  form: 

Fyrste  alven:  Spettut  orm,  busty vel  kvass, 

eiter-0dle,  sieve  graa, 
fare  burt  fraa  denne  plass, 
so  vaar  dronning  sova  maa! 

Alle:  Maaltrost,  syng  med  oss  i  liind 

dronningi  i  saelan  blund : 
Byssam,  byssam  bame, 
gryta  heng  i  jame. 

Troll  og  nykk, 
gakk  burt  med  dykk 
denne  saele  skymingsstund! 
So  god  natt!    Sov  s0tt  i  lundl 

Andre  alven:  Burt,  tordivel,  kom  kje  her! 

Makk  og  snigill,  burt  dykk  vinn! 
Kongro,  far  ei  onnor  ferd, 
langt  if raa  oss  din  spune  spinn ! 

Alle:  Maaltrost,  syng  med  oss  i  lund,  etc. 

The  first  version  is  not  only  more  literal  but,  so  far  as  I  can 
judge,  superior  in  every  way — in  music  and  delicacy  of  phrase. 
And  again,  Eggen  has  taken  it  upon  himself  to  patch  up  Shake- 
speare with  homespun  rags  from  his  native  Norwegian  parish. 
It  is  difficult  to  say  upon  what  grounds  such  tinkerings  with  the 
text  as: 


41 


Byssam,  byssam  bame, 
gryta  heng  i  jarne, 

can  be  defended. 

But  we  have  already  devoted  too  much  space  to  this  matter. 
Save  for  a  few  isolated  lines,  Eggen  might  very  well  have  left 
these  scenes  as  he  gave  them  to  us  in  1903.  We  then  ask,  "What 
of  the  much  greater  part  of  the  play  now  translated  for  the  first 
time?"  Well,  no  one  will  dispute  the  translator's  triumph  in 
this  scene  :^^ 

M^nsaas:  Er  heile  kompanie  samla? 
Varp:        Det  er  best  du  ropar  deim  upp  alle  saman,  mann  for  mann,  etter 

lista. 
Mdnsaas :  Her  er  ei  liste  yver  namni  paa  alle  deim  som  me  i  heile  At6n  fimi 
mest  hjrfvelege  til  aa  spela  i  millomstykke  vaareses  framfyre  hertugen 
og  frua  bans  paa  brudlaupsdagen  um  kvelden. 
Varp:       Du  Per  Mdnsaas,  lyt  fyrst  segja  kva  stykke  gjeng  ut  paa;  les  so  upp 

namni  paa  spelarne,  og  so — til  saki, 
M ^aas :  Ja.  vel.     Stykke  heiter:  "Det  gr^telege  gamanspele  imi  Pyramus 

og  Tisbi  og  deira  syndlege  daude." 
Varp:       Verkeleg  eit  godt  stykke  arbeid,  skal  eg  segja  dykk,  og  morsamt 
med.    No,  min  gode  Per  Mdnsaas,  ropa  upp  spelarne  etter  lista. 
Godtfolk,  spreid  dykk. 
Mdnsaas:  Svara  ettersom  eg  ropar  dykk  upp. 

Nils  Varp,  vevar? 
Varp:       Her!    Seg  kva  for  ein  rolle  eg  skal  hava,  og  haldt  so  fram. 
Mdnsaas:  Du,  Nils  Varp,  er  skrivin  for  Pyramus. 
Varp:        Kva  er  Pyramus  for  slags  kar?    Ein  elskar  eller  ein  fark? 
Mdnsaas:  Ein  elskar  som  drep  seg  sj01v  paa  aegte  riddarvis  av  kjaerleik. 
Varp:       Det  kjem  til  aa  koste  taarur  um  ein  spelar  det  retteleg.    Faer  eg 
spela  det,  so  lyt  nok  dei  som  ser  paa,  sjaa  til  kvar  dei  hev  augo 
sine;  eg  skal  grj^te  steinen,  eg  skal  jamre  so  faelt  so.     For  resten, 
mi  gaave  ligg  best  for  ein  berserk.     Eg  skulde  spela  herr  Kules 
fraamifra — eller  ein  rolle,  der  eg  kann  klore  og  bite  og  slaa  all  ting 
i  mdl  og  mas: 

Og  sprikk  det  f  jell 
med  toresmell, 
daa  simder  fell 
kvar  port  so  sterk. 
Stig  F0bus  fram 
bak  skyatram, 
daa  sprikk  med  skam 
alt  gygere-herk. 
Det  der  laag  no  h^gt  det.    Nemn  so  resten  av  spelarane. 
Dette  var  rase  til  herr  Kules,  berserk-ras;  ein  elskar  er  meir  klagande. 

»'  Act  n,  Sc.  2. 


42 

There  can  be  no  doubt  about  the  genuineness  of  this.  It 
catches  the  spirit  of  the  original  and  communicates  it  irresistibly 
to  the  reader.  When  Bottom  (Varp)  says  "Kva  er  Pyramus  for 
slags  kar?"  or  when  he  threatens,  "Eg  skal  gr^te  steinen,  eg  skal 
jamre  so  faelt  so,"  one  who  has  something  of  Norwegian  "Sprach- 
gefiihl"  will  exclaim  that  this  is  exactly  what  it  should  be.  It  is 
not  the  language  of  Norwegian  artisans — they  do  not  speak  Lands- 
maal.  But  neither  is  the  language  of  Shakespeare's  craftsmen 
the  genuine  spoken  language  of  Elizabethan  craftsmen.  The 
important  thing  is  that  the  tone  is  right.  And  this  feeling  of  a 
right  tone  is  still  further  satisfied  in  the  rehearsal  scene  (III,  Sc.  1). 
Certain  slight  liberties  do  not  diminish  our  pleasure.  The  remin- 
iscence of  Richard  III  in  Bottom's,  ''A  calendar,  a  calendar, 
looke  in  the  Almanack,  finde  out  moonshine,"  translated  "Ei 
almanakke,  ei  almanakke,  mit  kongerike  for  ei  almanakke," 
seems,  however,  a  labored  piece  of  business.  One  hne,  too,  has 
been  added  to  this  speech  which  is  a  gratuitous  invention  of  the 
translator,  or  rather,  taken  from  the  curious  malaprop  speech  of 
the  laboring  classes;  "Det  er  rett.  Per  M^nsaas;  sjaa  millom  as- 
pektarane!"  There  can  be  no  objection  to  an  interpolation 
like  this  if  the  translation  does  not  aim  to  be  scholarly  and  defini- 
tive, but  merely  an  effort  to  bring  a  foreign  classic  home  to  the  mas- 
ses. And  this  is,  obviously,  Eggen's  purpose.  Personally  I  do 
not  think,  therefore,  that  there  is  any  objection  to  a  slight  free- 
dom like  this.    But  it  has  no  place  at  all  in  the  fairies'  lullaby. 

When  we  move  to  the  circle  of  the  high-place  lovers  or  the 
court,  I  cannot  feel  that  the  Landsmaal  is  quite  so  convincing. 
There  is  something  appallingly  clumsy,  labored,  hard,  in  this  speech 
of  Hermia's: 

Min  eigin  gut, 
eg  sver  ved  beste  bogen  Amor  hev, 
ved  beste  pili  bans,  med  odd  av  gull, 
ved  duvune,  dei  reine  og  dei  kvite 
,  som  flyg  paa  tun  hjaa  f agre  Af rodite, 
ved  det  som  knyter  mannehjarto  saman, 
ved  det  som  f0der  kjaerlerks  fryd  og  gaman, 
ved  baale,  der  seg  dronning  Dido  brende, 
daa  seg  ^Eneas  trulaus  fraa  ho  vende, 
ved  kvar  den  eid  som  falske  menn  hev  svori — 
langt  fler  enn  kvinnelippur  fram  hev  bori, 


43 

at  paa  den  staden  du  hev  nemnt  for  meg, 
der  skal  i  morgo  natt  eg  m^te  deg. 

In  spite  of  the  translator's  obvious  effort  to  put  fire  into  the 
passage,  his  failure  is  all  too  evident.  Even  the  ornament  of 
these  lines — to  which  there  is  nothing  to  correspond  in  the  ori- 
ginal— only  makes  the  poetry  more  forcibly  feeble: 

ved  duvune,  dei  reine  og  dei  kvite 
som  flyg  paa  tun  hjaa  fagre  Afrodite, 

Shakespeare  says  quite  simply: 

By  the  simplicity  of  Venus  Doves, 

and  to  anyone  but  a  Landsmaal  fanatic  it  seems  ridiculous  to 
have  Theseus  tell  Hermia:  "Demetrius  er  so  gild  ein  kar  som 
nokon."  "Demetrius  is  a  worthy  gentleman,"  says  Shake- 
speare and  this  has  "the  grand  Manner."  But  to  a  cultivated 
Norwegian  the  translation  is  "  Bauemsprache, "  such  as  a  local 
magnate  might  use  in  forcing  a  suitor  on  his  daughter. 

All  of  which  goes  back  to  the  present  condition  of  Landsmaal. 
It  has  little  flexibility,  little  inward  grace.  It  is  not  a  finished 
literary  language.  But,  despite  its  archaisms,  Landsmaal  is  a 
living  language  and  it  has,  therefore,  unlike  the  Karathevusa 
of  Greece,  the  possibility  of  growth.  The  translations  of  Madhus 
and  Aasen  and  Eggen  have  made  notable  contributions  to  this 
development.  They  are  worthy  of  all  praise.  Their  weaknesses 
are  the  result  of  conditions  which  time  will  change. 

J 

One  might  be  tempted  to  believe  from  the  foregoing  that  the 
propagandists  of  "Maalet"  had  completely  monopolized  the 
noble  task  of  making  Shakespeare  accessible  in  the  vernacular. 
And  this  is  almost  true.  But  the  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  Aside 
from  the  fact  that  in  Norway,  as  elsewhere,  Shakespeare  is  read 
mainly  by  cultivated  people,  among  whom  a  sound  reading  knowl- 
edge of  English  is  general,  we  have  further  to  remember  that  the 
Forsom-Lembcke  version  has  become  standard  in  Norway  and 
no  real  need  has  been  felt  of  a  separate  Norwegian  version  in 
the  dominant  literary  language.  Iii  Landsmaal  the  case  is  dif- 
ferent. This  dialect  must  be  trained  to  "  Literaturf ahigkeit. " 
It  is  not  so  much  that  Norway  must  have  her  own  Shakespeare 


44 


as  that  Landsmaal  must  be  put  to  use  in  every  type  of  literature. 
The  results  of  this  missionary  spirit  we  have  seen. 

One  of  the  few  translations  of  Shakespeare  that  have  been  made 
into  Riksmaal  appeared  in  1912,  Hamlet,  by  C.  H.  Blom.  As  an 
experiment  it  is  worthy  of  respect,  but  as  a  piece  of  literature  it  is 
not  to  be  taken  seriously.  Like  Lassen's  work,  it  is  honest, 
faithful,  and  utterly  uninspired. 

The  opening  scene  of  Hamlet  is  no  mean  test  of  a  translator's 
abiUty — this  quick,  tense  scene,  one  of  the  finest  in  dramatic 
literature.  Foersom  did  it  with  conspicuous  success.  Blom  has 
reduced  it  to  the  following  prosy  stuff: 

Hvem  der? 

Nei,  svar  mig  f^rst;  gj0r  holdt  og  sig  hvem  der! 

Vor  konge  lienge  level 

De,  Bernardo? 
Ja   vel. 

De  kommer  jo  paa  klokkeslaget. 
Ja,  den  slog  tolv  nu.     Gaa  til  ro,  Francisco. 
Tak  for  De  l^ser  av.    Her  er  saa  surt,  og  jeg  er  d^dsens  traet. 
Har  du  hat  rolig  vagt? 

En  mus  har  ei 
sig  r^rt. 

Nu  vel,  god  nat. 
Hvis  du  Marcellus  og  Horatio  ser, 
som  skal  ha  vakt  med  mig,  bed  dem  sig  skynde. 
Jeg  h^rer  dem  vist  nu.     Holdt  hoi!    Hvem  der. 

(Horatio  og  MarceUus  kommer.) 
Kun  landets  venner. 

Danekongens  folk! 
God  nat,  sov  godtl 

Godnat,  du  bra  soldat! 
Hvem  har  Ijzlst  av? 

Bernardo  staar  paa  post. 
God  nat  igjen.    (Gaar.) 

It  requires  little  knowledge  of  Norwegian  to  dismiss  this  as 
dull  and  insipid  prose,  a  part  of  which  has  accidentally  been 
turned  into  mechanical  blank  verse.  Moreover,  the  work  is 
marked  throughout  by  inconsistency  and  carelessness  in  details. 
For  instance  the  king  begins  (p.  7)  by  addressing  Laertes: 

Hvad  melder  De  mig  om  Dem  selv,  Laertes? 
and  two  lines  below: 


Bernado : 

Francisco : 

Ben 

Fra: 

Ber: 

Fra: 

Ber: 

Fra: 

Ber: 

Fra: 

Ber: 


Fra: 

Horatio : 
Marcellus : 
Fra: 
Mar: 


Fra: 


Hvad  kan  du  be  mig  om? 


45 

It  might  be  a  mere  slip  that  the  translator  in  one  line  uses  the 
formal  De  and  in  another  the  familiar  du^  but  the  same  inconsis- 
tency occurs  again  and  again  throughout  the  volume.  In  itself 
a  trifle,  it  indicates  clearly  enough  the  careless,  slipshod  manner 
of  work — ^and  an  utter  lack  of  a  sense  of  humor,  for  no  one  with 
a  spark  of  humor  would  use  the  modem,  essentially  German  De 
in  a  Norwegian  translation  of  Shakespeare.  If  a  formal  form 
must  be  used  it  should,  as  a  matter  of  coarse,  be  /. 

Nor  is  the  translation  itself  so  accurate  as  it  should  be.  For 
example,  what  does  it  mean  when  Marcellus  tells  Bernardo  that 
he  had  implored  Horatio  "at  vogte  paa  minutteme  inat"  (to 
watch  over  the  minutes  this  night)?  Again,  in  the  King's  speech 
to  Hamlet  (Act  I,  Sc.  2)  the  phrase  "bend  you  to  remain"  is 
rendered  by  the  categorical  "se  til  at  bli  herhjemme,"  which  is 
at  least  misleading.  Little  inaccuracies  of  this  sort  are  not  infre- 
quent. 

But,  after  all,  a  translator  with  a  new  variorum  and  a  wealth 
of  critical  material  at  hand  cannot  go  far  wrong  in  point  of  mere 
translation.  The  chief  indictment  to  be  made  against  Blom's 
translation  is  its  prosiness,  its  prosy,  involved  sentences,  its  banal- 
ity. What  in  Shakespeare  is  easy  and  mellifluous  often  becomes 
in  Blom  so  vague  that  its  meaning  has  to  be  discovered  by  a  refer- 
ence to  the  original. 

We  gave,  some  pages  back,  Ivar  Aasen's  translation  of  Hamlet's 
soliloquy.  The  interesting  thing  about  that  translation  is  not 
only  that  it  is  the  first  one  in  Norwegian  but  that  it  was  made 
into  a  new  dialect  by  the  creator  of  that  dialect  himself.  When 
we  look  back  and  consider  what  Aasen  had  to  do — first,  make  a 
literary  medium,  and  then  pour  into  the  still  rigid  and  inelastic 
forms  of  that  language  the  subtlest  thinking  of  a  great  world 
literature — we  gain  a  new  respect  for  his  genius.  Fifty  years  later 
Blom  tried  his  hand  at  the  same  soHloquy.  He  was  working  in 
an  old  and  tried  Uterary  medium — Dano-Norwegian.  But  he 
was  unequal  to  the  task: 

At  vaere  eller  ikke  vaere,  det 
problemet  er:  Om  det  er  st^rre  av 
en  sjael  at  taale  skjaebnens  pil  og  slynge 
end  ta  til  vaaben  mot  et  hav  av  plager 
og  ende  dem  i  kamp?    At  d0, — at  sove, 
ei  mer;  og  tro,  at  ved  en  s^vn  vi  ender 


46 

vor  hjerteve  og  livets  tusen  st0t, 

som  kj0d  er  arving  til — det  maal  for  livet 

maa  0nskes  inderlig.     At  djZJ, — at  sove — 

at  sove ! — Kanske  dr^mme !     Der  er  knuten ; 

for  hvad  i  djzldsens  s0vn  vi  monne  dr0mme, 

naar  livets  laenke  vi  har  viklet  av, 

det  holder  os  igjen;  det  er  det  hensyn, 

som  gir  vor  jammer  her  saa  langt  et  liv*  etc. 

K 

Much  more  interestmg  than  Blom's  attempt,  and  much  more 
significant,  is  a  translation  and  working  over  oi  As  You  Like  It 
which  appeared  in  November  of  the  same  year.  The  circum- 
stances under  which  this  translation  were  made  are  interesting. 
Fru  Johanne  Dybwad,  one  of  the  "stars"  at  the  National  Theater 
was  completing  her  twenty-fifth  year  of  service  on  the  stage,  and 
the  theater  wished  to  commemorate  the  event  in  a  manner  worthy 
of  the  actress.  For  the  gala  performance,  Herman  Wildenvey, 
a  poet  of  the  young  Norway,  made  a  new  translation  and  adapta- 
tion oi  As  You  Like  It?^  And  no  choice  could  have  been  more 
felicitous.  Fru  Dybwad  had  scored  her  greatest  success  as  Puck; 
the  life  and  sparkle  and  joUity  of  that  mischievous  wight  seemed 
hke  a  poetic  glorification  of  her  own  character.  It  might  be  ex- 
pected, then,  that  she  would  triumph  in  the  role  of  Rosalind. 

Then  came  the  problem  of  a  stage  version.  A  simple  cut- 
ting of  Lembcke  seemed  inappropriate  to  this  intensely  modern 
woman.  There  was  danger,  too,  that  Lembcke's  faithful  Danish 
would  hang  heavy  on  the  light  and  sparkling  Norwegian.  Herman 
Wildenvey  undertook  to  prepare  an  acting  version  that  should 
fit  the  actress  and  the  occasion.  The  result  is  the  text  before  us. 
For  the  songs  and  intermissions,  Johan  Halvorsen,  Kapelmester  of 
the  theater,  composed  new  music  and  the  theater  provided  a 
magnificent  staging.  The  tremendous  stage-success  of  Wildenvey^s 
As  You  Like  It  belongs  rather  to  stage  history,  and  for  the  present 
we  shall  confine  ourselves  to  the  translation  itself. 

First,  what  of  the  cutting?  In  a  short  introduction  the  trans- 
lator has  given  an  apologia  for  his  procedure.  It  is  worth  quoting 
at  some  length.     "To  adapt  a  piece  of  literature  is,  as  a  rule, 

^^  As  You  Like  It,  eller  Lhet  i  Skogen.  Dramatisk  Skuespil  av  William 
Shakespeare.  Oversat  og  bearbeidet  for  Nationaltheatret  av  Herman  Wilden- 
vey.   Kristiania     og     K^benhavn.     1912. 


47 

not  especially  commendable.  And  now,  I  who  should  be  the  last 
to  do  it,  have  become  the  first  in  this  country  to  attempt  any- 
thing of  the  sort  with  Shakespeare. 

"I  will  not  defend  myself  by  saying  that  most  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  require  some  sort  of  adaptation  to  the  modern  stage  if  they 
are  to  be  played  at  all.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  have  done  Httle 
adapting.  I  have  dusted  some  of  the  speeches,  maltreated  others, 
and  finally  cut  out  a  few  which  would  have  sputtered  out  of  the 
mouths  of  the  actors  like  fringes  of  an  old  tapestry.  But,  above 
all,  I  have  tried  to  reproduce  the  imperishable  woodland  spirit, 
the  fresh  breath  of  out-of-doors  which  permeates  this  play." 

Wildenvey  then  states  that  in  his  cuttings  he  has  followed  the 
edition  of  the  British  Empire  Shakespeare  Society.  But  the  per- 
formance in  Kristiania  has  demanded  more,  ''and  my  adaptation 
could  not  be  so  wonderfully  ideal.  As  You  Like  It  is,  probably 
more  than  any  other  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  a  jest  and  only  in  part 
a  play.  Through  the  title  he  has  given  his  work,  he  has  given  me 
the  right  to  make  my  own  arrangement  which  is  accordingly,  yours 
truly   As    You   Like   //." 

But  the  most  cursory  examination  will  show  that  this  is  more 
than  a  mere  "cutting. "  In  the  first  place,  the  five  acts  have  been 
cut  to  four  and  scenes  widely  separated,  have  often  been  brought 
together.  In  this  way  unnecessary  scene-shifts  have  been  avoided. 
But  the  action  has  been  kept  intact  and  only  two  characters  have 
been  eliminated :  Jacques  de  Bois,  whose  speeches  have  been  given 
to  Le  Beau,  and  Hymen,  whose  role  has  been  given  to  Celia.  Two 
or  three  speeches  have  been  shifted.  But  to  a  reader  unacquainted 
with  Shakespeare  all  this  would  pass  unnoticed,  as  would  also, 
doubtless,  the  serious  cutting  and  the  free  translation. 

A  brief  sketch  of  Wildenvey's  arrangement  will  be  of  service. 
Act  I,  Sc.  1.  An  open  place  on  the  road  to  Sir  Oliver's  house. 
The  scene  opens  with  a  short,  exceedingly  free  rendering  of  Or- 
lando's speech  and  runs  on  to  the  end  of  Scene  1  in  Shakespeare. 
Act  I,  Sc.  2    Outside  of  Duke  Frederik's  Palace. 

Begins  with  I,  2  and  goes  to  I,  3.    Then  follows 
without  change  of  scene,  I,  3.  and,  following  that, 
1,  3. 
Act  II  In  Wildenvey  this  is  all  one  scene. 

Opens  with  a  rhapsodical  conversation  between  the 


48 

banished  duke  and  Amiens  on  the  glories  of  nature  and 
the  joys  of  out-door  Ufe.  It  is  fully  in  Shakespeare's 
tone,  but  Wildenvey's  own  invention.  After  this 
the  scene  continues  with  II,  1.  The  first  lord's 
speech  in  Wildenvey,  however,  is  merely  a  free 
adaptation  of  the  original,  and  the  later  speech  of 
the  first  lord,  describing  Jacques'  reveries  on  the 
hunt,  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jacques  himself. 
A  few  entirely  new  speeches  follow  and  the  company 
goes  out  upon  the  hunt. 

There  is  then  a  slight  pause,  but  no  scene  division, 
and  Shakespeare's  II,  4  follows.  This  is  succeeded 
again  without  a  break,  by  II,  5,  II,  6,  and  II,  7  (the 
opening  of  II,  7  to  the  entrance  of  Jacques,  is 
omitted  altogether)  to  the  end  of  the  act. 

Act  III.       This  act  has  two  scenes. 

Sc.  1.  In  Duke  Frederik's  palace.     It  opens  with 

II,  1   and  then  follows  III,  1. 

Sc.  2.  In  the  Forest  of  Arden.     Evening. 

Begins  with  III,  2.      Then  follows  III,  4,  III  5, 

IV,  1. 
Act  IV.  Wildenvey's  last  act  (IV)  opens  with  Shakespeare's 

IV,  2  and  continues:  IV,  3,  V,  1,  V,  2,  V,  3,  V,  4. 

A  study  of  this  scheme  shows  that  Wildenvey  has  done  no 
great  violence  to  the  fable  nor  to  the  characters.  His  shifts  and 
changes  are  sensible  enough.  In  the  treatment  of  the  text,  how- 
ever, he  has  had  no  scruples.  Shakespeare  is  mercilessly  cut 
and  mangled. 

The  ways  in  which  this  is  done  are  many.  A  favorite  device 
is  to  break  up  long  speeches  into  dialogue.  To  make  this  possi- 
ble he  has  to  put  speeches  of  his  own  invention  into  the  mouths  of 
other  characters.  The  opening  of  the  play  gives  an  excellent  illus- 
tration.   In  Wildenvey  we  read: 

Orlando:    (kommer  ind  med  tjeneren  Adam) 

Nu  kan  du  likesaa  godc  faa  vite  hvordan  alle  mine  bedr^veligheter 
begynder,  Adam!  Min  salig  far  testamenterte  mig  nogen  fattige 
tusen  kroner  og  paala  uttrykkelig  min  bror  at  gi  mig  en  standsmaes- 
sig  opdragelse.    Men  se  hvordan  han  opfylder  sin  broderpligt  mot 


49 

mig !  Han  lar  min  bror  Jacques  studere,  og  rygtet  melder  om  bans 
store  fremgang.  Men  mig  underholder  ban  bjemme,  det  \dl  si,  ban 
bolder  mig  bjemme  uten  at  underbolde  mig.  For  man  kan  da  vel 
ikke  kalde  det  at  underbolde  en  adelsmand  som  ellers  regnes  for  at 
staldfore  en  okse! 

Adam:  Det  er  synd  om  Eder,  berre,  I  som  er  min  gamle  berres  bedste  sjrfn! 
Men  jeg  tjener  Eders  bror,  og  er  alene  tjener.  .  .  . 

Orl:  Her  bos  bam  bar  jeg  ikke  kunnet  laegge  mig  til  noget  andet  end 

vaekst,  og  det  kan  jeg  vaere  bam  likesaa  forbunden  for  som  bans 
busdyr  bist  og  ber.  Formodentlig  er  det  det  jeg  bar  arvet  av  min 
fars  aand  som  gj0r  opr^r  mot  denne  bebandling.  Jeg  bar  ingen 
utsigt  til  nogen  forandring  til  det  bedre,  men  bvad  der  end  baender, 
vil  jeg  ikke  taale  det  laenger. 

Orlando's  speech,  we  see,  has  been  broken  up  into  two,  and 
between  the  two  new  speeches  has  been  interpolated  a  speech  by 
Adam  which  does  not  occur  in  the  original.  The  same  trick  is 
resorted  to  repeatedly.  Note,  for  instance,  Jacques  first  speech  on 
the  deer  (Act  II,  7)  and  Oliver's  long  speech  in  IV,  3.  The  pur- 
pose of  this  is  plain  enough — to  enliven  the  dialogue  and  speed  up 
the  action.  Whether  or  not  it  is  a  legitimate  way  of  handling 
Shakespeare  is  another  matter. 

More  serious  than  this  is  Wildenvey's  trick  of  adding  whole 
series  of  speeches.  We  have  noted  in  our  survey  of  the  "bear- 
beidelse"  that  the  second  act  opens  with  a  dialogue  between  the 
Duke  and  Amiens  which  is  a  gratuitous  addition  of  Wildenvey's. 
It  is  suggested  by  the  original,  but  departs  from  it  radically  both  in 
form  and  content. 

Den  Landflygtige  Hertug  (kommer  ut  fra  en  grotte  i  skogen) 

Vaer  bilset,  dag,  som  laegges  til  de  andre 

av  mine  mange  motgangs  dage. 

Vaer  bilset  nu,  naar  solen  atter  stempler 

sit  gyldne  segl  paa  jordens  stolte  pande. 

Vaer  bilset,  morgen,  med  din  nye  rigdom, 

med  dug  og  duft  fra  alle  traer  og  blomster. 

Glade,  blanke  fugle^ines  perler 

blinker  alt  av  sol  som  duggens  draaper, 

hilser  mig  som  berre  og  som  ven.     (En  fugl  flyver 
op  over  bans  bode.) 

Ei,  lille  sangerskjelm,  godt  ord  igjen? 
Amiens:    (bertugens  ven,  kommer  likeledes  ut  av  bulen). 

Godmorgen,  ven  og  broder  i  eksilet. 
Hertugen:  Godmorgen,   Amiens,   du  glade  Sanger! 

Du  er  vel  enig  i  at  slik  en  morgen 

i  skogen  ber  med  al  dens  liv  og  lek 


50 

er  fuld  erstatning  for  den  pragt  vi  tapte, 

ja  mer  end  hoffets  smigergyldne   falskhet? 
Amiens:    Det  ligner  litt  paa  selve  Edens  have, 

og  traer  og  dyr  og  andre  forekomster 

betragter   os   som   Adamer,   kanhaende. 
Hertugen:  Din  sp^g  er  vel  en  saadan  Sanger  vaerd. 

Du  mener  med  at  her  er  alting  herlig, 

sommer,  vinter,  vaar  og  h^sttid  veksler. 

Solen    skinner,    vind   og   veiret   driver. 

Vinterblaasten  blaaser  op  og  biter 

og  fortaeller  uden  sminket  smiger 

hvem  vi  er,  og  hvor  vi  os  befinder. 

Ja,  livet  her  er  ei  ly  for  verdens  ondskap, 

er  stolt  og  frit  og  fuldt  av  rike  glaeder: 

hver  graasten  sjoies  god  og  kirkeklok, 

hvert  redetrae  er  jo  en  sangers  slot, 

og  alt  er  skj0nt,  og  alt  er  saare  godt. 
Amiens:    Du  er  en  godt  benaadet  oversaetter, 

naar  du  kan  tolke  skjaebnens  harske  talesaet 

i    slike    sterke,    stenmingsfulde    ord.  .  .  . 

(En  hofmand,  derefter  Jacques  og  tjenere  kommer.) 

Hertugen:  Godmorgen,  venner — vel,   saa  skal  vi  jage 

paa  vildtet  her,  de  vakre,  dumme  borgere 

av  denne  0de  og  forlate  stad.  .  .  . 
Jacques:    Det  er  synd  at  s^ndre  deres  vakre  lemmer 

med  pile-odd. 
Amiens:  Det  sanime  sier  du  altid, 

du  er  for  melankolsk  og  bitter,  Jacques. 

A  careful  comparison  of  the  translation  with  the  original  will 
reveal  certain  verbal  resemblances,  notaby  in  the  duke's  speech: 

Din  sp0k  er  vel  en  saadan  Sanger  vaerd,  etc. 

But,  even  allowing  for  that,  it  is  a  rephrasing  rather  than  a  trans- 
lation. The  stage  action,  too,  is  changed.  Notice  that  Jacques 
appears  in  the  scene,  and  that  in  the  episode  immediately  follow- 
ing, the  second  part  of  the  first  lord's  speech  is  put  into  Jacques' 
mouth.     In  other  words,  he  is  made  to  caricature  himself! 

This  is  Wildenvey's  attitude  throughout.  To  take  still  another 
example.  Act  IV,  2  begins  in  the  Enghsh  with  a  brief  dialogue  in 
prose  between  Jacques  and  the  two  lords.  In  Wildenvey  this  is 
changed  to  a  rhymed  dialogue  in  iambic  tetrameters  between 
Jacques  and  Amiens.  In  like  manner,  the  blank  verse  dialogue 
between  Silvius  and  Phebe  (Silvius  anid  Pippa)  is  in  Norwegian 


51 

rendered,  or  rather  paraphrased,  in  iambic  verse  rhyming  reg- 
ularly abab. 

Occasionally  meanings  are  read  into  the  play  which  not  only 
do  not  belong  in  Shakespeare  but  which  are  ridiculously  out  of 
place.  As  an  illustration,  note  the  dialogue  between  Orlando  and 
Rosalind  in  II,  2  (Original,  III,  2).  Orlando  remarks:  "Your 
accent  is  something  finer  than  could  be  purchased  in  so  remote  a 
dwelling."  Wildenvey  renders  this:  "Eders  sprog  er  mer  elevert 
end  man  skulde  vente  i  disse  vilde  trakter.  De  taler  ikke  Lands- 
maal."  Probably  no  one  would  be  deceived  by  this  gratuitous 
satire  on  the  Landsmaal,  but,  obviously,  it  has  no  place  in  what 
pretends  to  be  a  translation.  The  one  justification  for  it  is  that 
Shakespeare  himself  could  not  have  resisted  so  neat  a  word-play. 

Wildenvey's  version,  therefore,  can  only  be  characterized 
as  needlessly  free.  For  the  text  as  such  he  has  absolutely  no 
regard.  But  for  the  fact  that  he  has  kept  the  fable  and,  for  the 
most  part,  the  characters,  intact,  we  should  characterize  it  as  a 
belated  specimen  of  Sille  Beyer's  notorious  Shakespeare  "bear- 
beidelser"  in  Denmark.  But  Wildenvey  does  not  take  Sille 
Beyer's  liberties  with  the  dramatis  personae  and  he  has,  moreover, 
what  she  utterly  lacked — ^poetic  genius. 

For  that  is  the  redeeming  feature  of  Livet  i  Skogen — it 
does  not  translate  Shakespeare  but  it  makes  him  live.  The  de- 
lighted audience  which  sat  night  after  night  in  Christiania  and 
Copenhagen  and  drank  in  the  loveliness  of  Wildenvey's  verse  and 
Halvorsen's  music  cared  little  whether  the  lines  that  came  over 
the  foothghts  were  philologically  an  accurate  translation  or  not. 
They  were  enchanted  by  Norwegian  verse  and  moved  to  unfeigned 
delight  by  the  cleverness  of  the  prose.  If  Wildenvey  did  not 
succeed  in  translating  As  You  Like  It — one  cannot  believe  that  he 
ever  intended  to, — he  did  succeed  in  reproducing  something  of  "  its 
imperishable  woodland  spirit,  its  fresh  breath  of  out-of-doors." 

We  have  already  quoted  the  opening  of  Act  II.  It  is  not 
Shakespeare  but  it  is  good  poetry  in  itself.  And  the  immortal 
scene  between  Touchstone  and  Corin  in  III,  2  (Shak.  Ill,  2),  in 
which  Touchstone  clearly  proves  that  the  shepherd  is  damned,  is 
a  capital  piece  of  work.  The  following  fragment  must  serve  as 
an  example: 
Touchstone:  Har  du  vaeret  ved  hoffet,  hyrde? 


52 


Korin 

Touch 
Korin 
Touch 
Korin 
Touch 


Visselig  ikke. 


Da  er  du  evig  ford^mt. 

Det   haaber   jeg   da   ikke. 

Visselig,  da  er  du  ford^mt  som  en  sviske. 

Fordi  jeg  ikke  har  vseret  ved  hoffet?    Hvad  mener  I? 

Hvis  du  ikke  har  vaeret  ved  hoffet,  saa  har  du  aldrig  set  gode 

seder,  og  hvis  du  ikke  har  set  gode  seder,  saa  maa  dine  seder 

vaere  slette,  og  slette  seder  er  synd,  og  syndens  sold  er  dj^d  og 

ford^mmelse.    Du  er  i  en  betaenkelig  tilstand,  hyrde! 

And  the  mocking  verses  all  rhyming  in  in-ind  in  III,  3  (Shak.  Ill,  2) : 
"From  the  East  to  western  Ind,"  etc.,  are  given  with  marvelous 
cleverness: 

Fra  ^st  til  vest  er  ei  at  finde 
en  aedelsten  som  Rosalinde. 
Al  verden  om  paa  alle  vinde 
skal  rygtet  gaa  om  Rosalinde. 
Hvor  har  en  maler  nogensinde 
et  kunstverk  skapt  som  Rosalinde? 
Al  anden  deilighet  maa  svinde 
av  tanken  bort — for  Rosalinde. 

Or  Touchstone^s  parody: 

Hjorten  skriker  efter  hinde, 
skrik  da  efter  Rosalinde, 
kat  vil  katte  gjeme  finde, 
hvem  vil  finde  Rosalinde. 
Vinterklaer  er  tit  for  tynde, 
det  er  ogsaa  Rosalinde. 
N^tten  s0t  har  surhamshinde, 
slik  en  n^tt  er  Rosalinde. 
Den  som  ros'  med  torn  vil  finde, 
finder  den — og  Rosalinde. 

With  even  greater  felicity  Wildenvey  has  rendered  the  songs 
of  the  play.  His  verses  are  not,  in  any  strict  sense,  translations, 
but  they  have  a  life  and  movement  which,  perhaps,  interpret  the 
original  more  fully  than  any  translation  could  interpret  it.  What 
freshness  and  sparkle  in  "Under  the  Greenwood  Tree!"  I  give 
only  the  first  stanza: 

Under  de  gr^nne  traer 

hvem  vil  mig  mjite  der? 

Hvem  vil  en  tone  slaa 

frit  mot  det  blide  blaa? 

Kom  hit  og  herhen,  hit  og  herhen, 


53 

kom,  kjaere  ven, 

her  skal  du  se, 

traer  skal  du  se, 
sommer  og  herlig  veir  skal  du  se. 

Or  what  could  be  better  than  the  exhiUrating  text  of  "  Blow,  blow, 
thou  winter  wind,"  as  Wildenvey  has  given  it?  Again  only  the 
first  stanza: 

Blaas,  blaas  du  barske  vind, 

trol0se  venners  sind 

synes  os  mere  raa. 

Bar  du  dig  end  saa  sint, 

bet  du  dog  ei  saa  blindt, 

pustet  du  ogsaa  paa. 
Heiho!     Syngheiho!  i  vor  skog  under  Ij^vet. 
Alt  venskap  er  vammelt,  al  elskov  er  t0vet, 

men  her  under  Ij^vet 

er  ingen  bedr^vet. 

Livet  i  Skogetiy  then,  must  not  be  read  as  a  translation  of  ^4^ 
You  Like  It,  but  is  immensely  worth  reading  for  its  own  sake. 
Schiller  recast  and  rewrote  Macbeth  in  somewhat  the  same  way, 
but  Schiller's  Macbeth,  condemned  by  its  absurd  porter-scene,  is 
today  nothing  more  than  a  Uterary  curiosity.  I  firmly  believe 
that  Wildenvey's  "  bearbeidelse  "  deserves  a  better  fate.  It  gave 
new  life  to  the  Shakespeare  tradition  on  the  Norwegian  stage, 
and  is  in  itself,  a  genuine  contribution  to  the  literature  of  Norway. 

SUMMARY 

If  we  look  over  the  field  of  Norwegian  translation  of  Shake- 
speare, the  impression  we  get  is  not  one  to  inspire  awe.  The 
translations  are  neither  numerous  nor  important.  There  is 
nothing  to  be  compared  with  the  German  of  Tieck  and  Schlegel 
the  Danish  of  Foersom,  or  the  Swedish  of  Hagberg. 

But  the  reason  is  obvious.  Down  to  1814  Norway  was  politi- 
cally and  culturally  a  dependency  of  Denmark.  Copenhagen  was 
the  seat  of  government,  of  literature,  and  of  polite  life.  To 
Copenhagen  cultivated  Norwegians  looked  for  their  models  and 
their  ideals.  When  Shakespeare  made  his  first  appearance  in 
the  Danish  Uterary  world — Denmark  and  Norway — it  was,  of 
course,  in  pure  Danish  garb.  Boye,  Rosenfeldt,  and  Foersom 
gave  to  their  contemporaries  more  or  less  satisfactory  translations 
of  Shakespeare,  and  Norwegians  were  content  to  accept  the  Danish 


54 


versions.  In  one  or  two  instances  they  made  experiments  of  their 
own.  An  unknown  man  of  letters  translated  a  scene  from  Julius 
Caesar  in  1782,  and  in  1818  appeared  a  translation  of  Coriolanus. 
But  there  is  little  that  is  typically  Norwegian  about  either  of 
these — a  word  or  a  phrase  here  and  there.  For  the  rest,  they  are 
written  in  pure  Danish,  and  but  for  the  title-page,  no  one  could  tell 
whether  they  were  pubUshed  in  Copenhagen  or  Christiania  and 
Trondhjem. 

In  the  meantime  Foersom  had  begun  his  admirable  Danish 
translations,  and  the  work  stopped  in  Norway.  The  building 
of  a  nation  and  literary  interests  of  another  character  absorbed 
the  attention  of  the  cultivated  world.  Hauge's  translation  of 
Macbeth  is  not  significant,  nor  are  those  of  Lassen  thirty  years 
later.  A  scholar  could,  of  course,  easily  show  that  they  are  Nor- 
wegian, but  that  is  all.  They  never  succeeded  in  displacing  Foer- 
som-Lembcke. 

More  important  are  the  Landsmaal  translations  beginning 
with  Ivar  Aasen's  in  1853.  They  are  interesting  because  they 
mark  one  of  the  most  important  events  in  modern  Norwegian 
culture — the  language  struggle.  Ivar  Aasen  set  out  to  demonstrate 
that  "maalet"  could  be  used  in  literature  of  every  sort,  and  the 
same  purpose,  though  in  greatly  tempered  form,  is  to  be  detected 
in  every  Landsmaal  translation  since.  Certainly  in  their  out- 
ward aim  they  have  succeeded.  And,  despite  the  handicap  of 
working  in  a  language  new,  rough,  and  untried,  they  have  given 
to  their  countrymen  translations  of  parts  of  Shakespeare  which  are, 
at  least,  as  good  as  those  in  "Riksmaal." 

Herman  Wildenvey  stands  alone.  His  work  is  neither  a  trans- 
lation nor  a  mere  paraphrase;  it  is  a  reformulating  of  Shakespeare 
into  a  new  work  of  art.  He  has  accomplished  a  feat  worth  per- 
forming, but  it  cannot  be  called  translating  Shakespeare.  It  must 
be  judged  as  an  independent  work. 

Whether  Norway  is  always  to  go  to  Denmark  for  her  standard 
Shakespeare,  or  whether  she  is  to  have  one  of  her  own  is,  as  yet, 
a  question  impossible  to  answer.  A  pure  Landsmaal  transla- 
tion cannot  satisfy,  and  many  Norwegians  refuse  to  recognize 
the  Riksmaal  as  Norwegian  at  all.  In  the  far,  impenetrable 
future  the  language  question  may  settle  itself,  and  when  that 
happy  day  comes,  but  not  before,  we  may  look  with  some  confidence 
for  a  "standard"  Shakespeare  in  a  Uterary  garb  which  all  Nor- 
wegians will  recognize  as  their  own. 


55 


CHAPTER  II 

Shakespeare  Criticism  in  Norway 

The  history  of  Shakespearean  translation  in  Norway  cannot, 
by  any  stretch  of  the  imagination,  be  called  distinguished.  It  is 
not,  however,  wholly  lacking  in  interesting  details.  In  like  manner 
the  history  of  Shakespearean  criticism,  though  it  contains  no 
great  names  and  no  fascinating  chapters,  is  not  wholly  without 
appeal  and  significance.  We  shall,  then,  in  the  following,  con- 
sider this  division  of  our  subject. 

Our  first  bit  of  Shakespearean  criticism  is  the  little  intro- 
ductory note  which  the  anonymous  translator  of  the  scenes  from 
Julius  Caesar  put  at  the  head  of  his  translation  in  Trondhjems 
AUehaande  for  October  23,  1782.  And  even  this  is  a  mere  state- 
ment that  the  passage  in  the  original  "may  be  regarded  as  a  mas- 
terpiece," and  that  the  writer  purposes  to  render  not  merely 
Antony's  eloquent  appeal  but  also  the  interspersed  ejaculations 
of  the  crowd,  "since  these,  too,  are  evidence  of  Shakespeare's 
understanding  of  the  human  soul  and  of  his  realization  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  oration  gradually  brought  about  the  result 
toward  which  Antony  aimed. " 

This  is  not  profound  criticism,  to  be  sure,  but  it  shows  clearly 
that  this  Utterateur  in  far-away  Trondhjem  had  a  definite,  if  not 
a  very  new  and  original,  estimate  of  Shakespeare.  It  is  signi- 
ficant that  there  is  no  hint  of  apology,  of  that  tone  which  is  so 
common  in  Shakespearean  criticism  of  the  day — Shakespeare  was  a 
great  poet,  but  his  genius  was  wild  and  untamed.  This  unknown 
Norwegian,  apparently,  had  been  struck  only  by  the  verity  of 
the  scene,  and  in  that  simplicity  showed  himself  a  better  critic 
of  Shakespeare  than  many  more  famous  men.  Whoever  he  was, 
his  name  is  lost  to  us  now.  He  deserves  better  than  to  be  for- 
gotten, but  it  seems  that  he  was  forgotten  very  early.  Foersom 
refers  to  him  casually,  as  we  have  seen,  but  Rahbek  does  not  men- 
tion him.^  Many  years  later  Paul  Botten  Hansen,  one  of  the 
best  equipped  bookmen  that  Norway  has  produced,  wrote  a 
brief  review  of  Lembcke's  translation.     In  the  course  of  this  he 

'"Shakespeareana  i  Danmark "— I>awjife  Minerva,  1816  (III)  pp.  151  flf. 


56 

enumerates  the  Dano-Norwegian  translations  known  to  him. 
There  is  not  a  word  about  his  countryman  in  Trondhjem.* 

After  this  soHtary  landmark,  a  long  time  passed  before  we 
again  find  evidence  of  Shakespearean  studies  in  Norway.  The 
isolated  translation  of  Coriolanus  from  1818  shows  us  that  Shake- 
speare was  read,  carefully  and  critically  read,  but  no  one  turned 
his  attention  to  criticism  or  scholarly  investigation.  Indeed,  I 
have  searched  Norwegian  periodical  literature  in  vain  for  any 
allusion  to  Shakespeare  between  1782  and  1827.  Finally,  in 
the  latter  year  Den  Norske  Husven  adorns  its  title-page  with  a 
motto  from  Shakespeare.  Christiania  Apenhladet  for  July  19, 
1828,  reprints  Carl  Bagger's  clever  poem  on  Shakespeare's  reputed 
love-affair  with  "Fanny,"  an  adventure  which  got  him  into 
trouble  and  gave  rise  to  the  bon-mot,  "William  the  Conqueror 
ruled  before  Richard  III."  The  poem  was  reprinted  from  Kj'6- 
henhavns  Flyvende  Post  (1828);  we  shall  speak  of  it  again  in 
connection  with  our  study  of  Shakespeare  in  Denmark. 

After  this  there  is  another  break.  Not  even  a  reference  to 
Shakespeare  occurs  in  the  hundreds  of  periodicals  I  have  examined, 
until  the  long  silence  is  broken  by  a  short,  fourth-hand  article 
on  Shakespeare's  life  in  Skilling  Magazinet  for  Sept.  23,  1843. 
The  same  magazine  gives  a  similar  popular  account  in  its  issue  for 
Sept.  4,  1844.  Indeed,  several  such  articles  and  sketches  may 
be  found  in  popular  periodicals  of  the  years  following. 

In  1855,  however,  appeared  Niels  Hauge's  afore  mentioned 
translation  of  Macbeth,  and  shortly  afterward  Professor  Monrad, 
who,  according  to  Hauge  himself,  had  at  least  given  him  valuable 
counsel  in  his  work,  wrote  a  review  in  Nordisk  Tidsskrift  for 
Videnskab  og  Literature  Monrad  was  a  pedant,  stiff  and  inflexi- 
ble, but  he  was  a  man  of  good  sense,  and  when  he  was  deahng 
with  acknowledged  masterpieces  he  could  be  depended  upon  to 
say  the  conventional  things  well. 

He  begins  by  saying  that  if  any  author  deserves  translation 
it  is  Shakespeare,  for  in  him  the  whole  poetic,  romantic  ideal  of 
Protestantism  finds  expression.  He  is  the  Luther  of  poetry, 
though  between  Luther  and  Shakespeare  there  is  all  the  difference 
between  religious  zeal  and  the  quiet  contemplation  of  the  beautiful. 

""Illustreret  Nyhedsblad,  1865,  pp.  96  ff. 
'See  Vol.  Ill  (1855),  pp.  378  ff. 


57 

Both  belong  to  the  whole  world,  Shakespeare  because  his  charac- 
ters, humor,  art,  reflections,  are  universal  in  their  vaUdity  and 
their  appeal.  Wherever  he  is  read  he  becomes  the  spokesman 
against  narrowness,  dogmatism,  and  intolerance.  To  translate 
Shakespeare,  he  points  out,  is  difficult  because  of  the  archaic 
language,  the  obscure  allusions,  and  the  intense  originality  of 
the  expression.  Shakespeare,  indeed,  is  as  much  the  creator  as 
the  user  of  his  mother-tongue.  The  one  translation  of  Macbeth 
in  existence,  Foersom's,  is  good,  but  it  is  only  in  part  Shakespeare, 
and  the  times  require  something  more  adequate  and  "something 
more  distinctly  our  own."  Monrad  feels  that  this  should  not 
be  altogether  impossible  "when  we  consider  the  intimate  relations 
between  England  and  Norway,  and  the  further  coincidence  that 
the  Norwegian  language  today  is  in  the  same  state  of  flux  and 
transition  as  was  Elizabethan  English."  All  translations  at 
present,  he  continues,  can  be  but  experiments,  and  should  aim 
primarily  at  a  faithful  rendering  of  the  text.  Monrad  calls  atten- 
tion to  the  fact — in  which  he  was,  of  course,  mistaken — that  this 
is  the  first  translation  of  the  original  Macbeth  into  Dano-Norwegian 
or  into  Danish.  It  is  a  work  of  undoubted  merit,  though  here 
and  there  a  little  stiff  and  hazy,  "but  Shakespeare  is  not  easily 
clarified."  The  humorous  passages,  thinks  the  reviewer,  are  a 
severe  test  of  a  translator's  powers  and  this  test  Hauge  has  met 
with  conspicuous  success.  Also  he  has  aquitted  himself  well  in 
the  difficult  matter  of  putting  Shakespeare's  meter  into  Norwegian. 

The  last  two  pages  are  taken  up  with  a  detailed  study  of 
single  passages.  The  only  serious  error  Monrad  has  noticed  is 
the  following:  In  Act  II,  3  one  of  the  murderers  calls  out  "A 
light!  A  light!"  Regarding  this  passage  Monrad  remarks:  "It  is 
certainly  a  mistake  to  have  the  second  murderer  call  out,  "Bring 
a  light  here!"  (Lys  hid!)  The  murderer  does  not  demand  alight, 
but  he  detects  a  shimmer  from  Banquo's  approaching  torch." 
The  rest  of  the  section  is  devoted  to  mere  trifles. 

This  is  the  sort  of  review  which  we  should  expect  from  an 
intelHgent  and  well-informed  man.  Monrad  was  not  a  scholar, 
nor  even  a  man  of  delicate  and  penetrating  reactions.  But  he 
had  sound  sense  and  perfect  self-assurance,  which  made  him  some- 
thing of  a  Samuel  Johnson  in  the  little  provincial  Kristiania  of 
his  day.    At  any  rate,  he  was  the  only  one  who  took  the  trouble 


58 

to  review  Hauge's  translation,  and  even  he  was  doubtless  led 
to  the  task  because  of  his  personal  interest  in  the  translator. 
If  we  may  judge  from  the  stir  it  made  in  periodical  literature, 
Macbeth  fell  dead  from  the  press. 

The  tercentenary  of  Shakespeare's  birth  (1864)  aroused  a 
certain  interest  in  Norway,  and  little  notes  and  articles  are  not 
infrequent  in  the  newspapers  and  periodicals  about  that  time. 
Illustreret  Nyhedsblad^  has  a  short,  popular  article  on  Stratford-on- 
Avon.  It  contains  the  usual  Shakespeare  apocrypha — the  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy  story,  the  story  of  the  apple  tree  under  which 
Shakespeare  and  his  companions  slept  off  the  effects  of  too  much 
Bedford  ale — and  all  the  rest  of  it.  It  makes  no  pretense  of 
being  anything  but  an  interesting  hodge-podge  for  popular  con- 
sumption. The  next  year,  1864,  the  same  periodical  published^ 
on  the  traditional  day  of  Shakespeare's  birth  a  rather  long  and 
suggestive  article  on  the  English  drama  before  Shakespeare. 
If  this  article  had  been  original,  it  might  have  had  a  certain  signi- 
ficance, but,  unfortunately,  it  is  taken  from  the  German  of  Boden- 
stedt.  The  only  significant  thing  about  it  is  the  line  following 
the  title:  "Til  Erindring  paa  Trehundredsaarsdagen  efter  Shake- 
speares  Fodsel,  d.  23  April,  1563. " 

More  interesting  than  this,  however,  are  the  verses  written 
by  the  then  highly  esteemed  poet,  Andreas  Munch,  and  published 
in  his  own  magazine.  For  Hjemmet,^  in  April,  1864.  Munch  rarely 
rises  above  mediocrity  and  his  tribute  to  the  bard  of  Avon  is 
the  very  essence  of  it.    He  begins: 

I  disse  Dage  gaar  et  vaeldigt  Navn 

Fra  Mund  til  Mund,  fra  Kyst  til  Kyst  rundt  Jorden — 

Det  straaler  festUgt  over  f  jernest  Havn, 

Og  klinger  selv  igjennem  Krigens  Torden, 

Det  slutter  alle  Folk  i  Aandens  Favn, 

Og  er  et  Eenheds  Tegn  i  Striden  vorden — 

I  Stjemeskrift  det  staaer  paa  Tidens  Bue, 

Og  leder  Slaegteme  med  Hjertelue. 

and,   after  four  more   stanzas,   he   concludes: 

Hos  OS  har  ingen  ydre  Fest  betegnet 
Vort  Folks  Tribut  til  denne  store  Mand. 

*Vol.  XII  (1863),  pp.  199  ff. 
'Vol.  XIII  (1864),  pp.  65  £f. 
•  Vol.  V,  p.  572. 


59 


Er  vi  af  Hav  og  Fjelde  saa  omhegnet, 

At  ei  bans  Straaler  traenge  til  os  kan? 

Nei, — Nordisk  var  bans  Aand  og  netop  egnet 

Til  at  opfattes  af  vort  Norden-Land, 

Og  mer  maaske  end  selv  vi  tro  og  taenke, 

Har  Shakespeare  brudt  for  os  en  fremmed  Laenke. 

One  has  a  feeling  that  Munch  awoke  one  morning,  discovered 
from  his  calendar  that  Shakespeare's  birthday  was  approaching, 
and  ground  out  this  poem  to  fill  space  in  Hjemmet.  But  his 
intentions  are  good.  No  one  can  quarrel  with  the  content.  And 
when  all  is  said,  he  probably  expressed,  with  a  fair  degree  of 
accuracy,  the  feeling  of  his  time.  It  remains  but  to  note  a  detail 
or  two.  First,  that  the  poet,  even  in  dealing  with  Shakespeare, 
found  it  necessary  to  draw  upon  the  prevailing  "  Skandinavisme " 
and  label  Shakespeare  "Nordisk";  second,  the  accidental  truth 
of  the  closing  couplet.  If  we  could  interpret  this  as  referring  to 
Wergeland,  who  did  break  the  chains  of  foreign  bondage,  and  gave 
Norway  a  place  in  the  literature  of  the  world,  we  should  have  the 
first  reference  to  an  interesting  fact  in  Norwegian  literary  history. 
But  doubtless  we  have  no  right  to  credit  Munch  with  any  such 
acumen.  The  couplet  was  put  into  the  poem  merely  because  it 
sounded  well. 

More  important  than  this  effusion  of  bad  verse  from  the 
poet  of  fashion  was  a  little  article  which  Paul  Botten  Hansen 
wrote  in  Illustreret  Nyhedsblad'^  in  1865.  Botten  Hansen  had  a 
fine  literary  appreciation  and  a  profound  knowledge  of  books. 
The  effort,  therefore,  to  give  Denmark  and  Norway  a  complete 
translation  of  Shakespeare  was  sure  to  meet  with  his  sympathy. 
In  1861  Lembcke  began  his  revision  of  Foersom's  work,  and, 
although  it  must  have  come  up  to  Norway  from  Copenhagen  al- 
most immediately,  no  allusion  to  it  is  found  in  periodical  literature 
till  Botten  Hansen  wrote  his  review  of  Part  (Hefte)  XI.  This 
part  contains  King  John.  The  reviewer,  however,  does  not  enter 
upon  any  criticism  of  the  play  or  of  the  translation;  he  gives 
merely  a  short  account  of  Shakespearean  translation  in  the  two 
countries  before  Lembcke.  Apparently  the  notice  is  written 
without  special  research,  for  it  is  far  from  complete,  but  it  gives, 
at  any  rate,  the  best  outline  of  the  subject  which  we  have  had  up 
to  the  present.    Save  for  a  few  lines  of  praise  for  Foersom  and  a 

7  Vol.  XIV,  p.  96. 


60 


word  for  Hauge,  "who  gave  the  first  accurate  translation  of  this 
masterpiece  {Macbeth)  of  which  Dano-Norwegian  literature  can 
boast  before  1861,"  the  review  is  simply  a  loosely  connected 
string  of  titles.  Toward  the  close  Botten  Hansen  writes:  "When 
to  these  plays  (the  standard  Danish  translations)  we  add  (certain 
others,  which  are  given),  we  believe  that  we  have  enumerated  all 
the  Danish  translations  of  Shakespeare,"  This  investigation 
has  shown,  however,  that  there  are  serious  gaps  in  the  list.  Botten 
Hansen  calls  Foersom's  the  first  Danish  translation  of  Shakespeare. 
It  is  curious  that  he  should  have  overlooked  Johannes  Boye's 
Hamlet  of  1777,  or  Rosenfeldt's  translation  of  six  plays  (1790-1792). 
It  is  less  strange  that  he  did  not  know  Sander  and  Rahbek's 
translation  of  the  unaltered  Macbeth  of  1801 — which  preceded 
Hauge  by  half  a  century — for  this  was  buried  in  Sander's  lec- 
tures. Nor  is  he  greatly  to  be  blamed  for  his  ignorance  of  the 
numerous  Shakespearean  fragments  which  the  student  may  find 
tucked  away  in  Danish  reviews,  from  M.  C.  B run's  Svada  (1796) 
and  on.  Botten  Hansen  took  his  task  very  lightly.  If  he  had 
read  Foersom's  notes  to  his  translation  he  would  have  found  a 
clue  of  interest  to  him  as  a  Norwegian.  For  Foersom  specifi- 
cally refers  to  a  translation  of  a  scene  from  Julius  Caesar  in  Trond- 
hjems  Allehaande. 

Lembcke's  revision,  which  is  the  occasion  of  the  article,  is 
greeted  with  approval  and  encouragement.  There  is  no  need 
for  Norwegians  to  go  about  preparing  an  independent  translation. 
Quite  the  contrary.  The  article  closes:  "Whether  or  not  Lembcke 
has  the  strength  and  endurance  for  such  a  gigantic  task,  time  alone 
will  tell.  At  any  rate,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  public  to  encourage 
the   undertaking   and   make  possible   its   completion." 

We  come  now  to  the  most  interesting  chapter  in  the  history 
of  Shakespeare  in  Norway.  This  is  a  performance  of  A  Midsum- 
mer Night's  Dream  under  the  direction  of  Bj0rnstjerne  Bj^rnson 
at  Christiania  Theater,  April  17,  1865.  The  story  belongs  rather 
to  the  history  of  Shakespeare  on  the  Norwegian  stage,  but  the 
documents  of  the  affair  are  contributions  to  Shakespearean  criti- 
cism and  must,  accordingly,  be  discussed  here.  Bj^rnson's  fiery 
reply  to  his  critics  of  April  28  is  especially  valuable  as  an  analysis 
of  his  own  attitude  toward  Shakespeare. 


61 

Bj^mson  became  director  of  Christiania  Theater  in  January, 
1865,  and  the  first  important  performance  under  his  direction 
was  A  Midsummer  NigMs  Dream  (Skjarsommernatsdrommen) 
in  Oehlenschlager's  translation,  with  music  by  Mendelssohn.* 
Bj^rnson  had  strained  the  resources  of  the  theater  to  the  utmost 
to  give  the  performance  distinction.  But  the  success  was  doubt- 
ful. AfUnposten  found  it  tiresome,  and  Morgenbladet,  in  two  long 
articles,  tore  it  to  shreds.^  It  is  worth  while  to  review  the  con- 
troversy in  some  detail. 

The  reviewer  begins  by  saying  that  the  play  is  so  well  known 
that  it  is  needless  to  give  an  account  of  it.  "But  what  is  the 
meaning,"  he  exclaims,  "of  this  bold  and  poetic  mixture  of  clowns 
and  fairies,  of  mythology,  and  superstition,  of  high  and  low,  of  the 
earthly  and  the  supernatural?  And  the  scene  is  neither  Athens 
nor  Greece,  but  Shakespeare's  own  England;  it  is  his  own  time 
and  his  own  spirit. "  We  are  transported  to  an  English  grove  in 
early  summer  with  birds,  flowers,  soft  breezes,  and  cooling  shadows. 
What  wonder  that  a  man  coming  in  from  the  hunt  or  the  society 
of  men  should  fill  such  a  place  with  fairies  and  lovely  ladies  and 
people  it  with  sighs,  and  passions,  and  stories?  And  all  this  has 
been  brought  together  by  a  poet's  fine  feeling.  This  it  is  which 
separates  the  play  from  so  many  others  of  its  kind  now  so  common 
and  often  so  well  presented.  Here  a  master's  spirit  pervades  all, 
unites  all  in  lovely  romance.  Other  plays  are  mere  displays  of 
scenery  and  costume  by  comparison.  Even  the  sport  of  the 
clowns  throws  the  whole  into  stronger  relief. 

Now,  how  should  such  a  play  be  given?  Obviously,  by  actors 
of  the  first  order  and  with  costumes  and  scenery  the  most  splendid. 
This  goes  without  saying,  for  the  play  is  intended  quite  as  much 
to  be  seen  as  to  be  heard.  To  do  it  justice,  the  performance  must 
bring  out  some  of  the  splendor  and  the  fantasy  with  which  it  was 
conceived.  As  we  read  A  Midsummer  Night^s  Dream  it  is  easy 
to  imagine  the  glorious  succession  of  splendid  scenes,  but  on  the 
stage  the  characters  become  flesh  and  blood  with  fixed  limitations, 
and  the  illusion  is  easily  lost  unless  every  agency  is  used  to  carry 
it  out.  Hence  the  need  of  lights,  of  rich  costumes,  splendid  back- 
grounds, music,  rhythm. 

•Blanc.  Christianias  Theaters  Historie.,  p.   196. 
•  April  26-27,  1865. 


62 

The  play  opens  in  an  apparently  uninhabited  wood.  Suddenly 
all  comes  to  life — gay,  full,  romantic  life.  This  is  the  scene  to 
which  we  are  transported.  "It  is  a  grave  question,"  continues 
the  reviewer,  "if  it  is  possible  for  the  average  audience  to  attain 
the  full  illusion  which  the  play  demands,  and  with  which,  in 
reading,  we  have  no  difl&culty.  One  thing  is  certain,  the  audience 
was  under  no  illusion.  Some,  those  who  do  not  pretend  to  learn- 
ing or  taste,  wondered  what  it  was  all  about.  Only  when  the 
Hon  moved  his  tail,  or  the  ass  wriggled  his  ears  were  they  at  all 
interested.  Others  were  frankly  amused  from  first  to  last,  no 
less  at  Hermia's  and  Helen's  quarrel  than  at  the  antics  of  the 
clowns.  Still  others,  the  cultivated  minority,  were  simply  indif- 
ferent." 

The  truth  is  that  the  performance  was  stiff  and  cold.  Not 
for  an  instant  did  it  suggest  the  full  and  passionate  life  which 
is  the  theme  and  the  background  of  the  play.  Nor  is  this  strange. 
A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  is  plainly  beyond  the  powers  of  our 
theatre.  Individual  scenes  were  well  done,  but  the  whole  was  a 
cheerless  piece  of  business. 

The  next  day  the  same  writer  continues  his  analysis.  He 
points  out  that  the  secret  of  the  play  is  the  curious  interweaving 
of  the  real  world  with  the  supernatural.  Forget  this  but  for  a 
moment,  and  the  piece  becomes  an  impossible  monstrosity  with- 
out motivation  or  meaning.  Shakespeare  preserves  this  unity  in 
duality.  The  two  worlds  seem  to  meet  and  fuse,  each  giving 
something  of  itself  to  the  other.  But  this  unity  was  absent  from 
the  performance.  The  actors  did  not  even  know  their  lines,  and 
thus  the  spell  was  broken.  The  verse  must  flow  from  the  lips 
in  a  Hmpid  stream,  especially  in  a  fairy  play;  the  words  must  never 
seem  a  burden.  But  even  this  elementary  rule  was  ignored  in 
our  performance.  And  the  ballet  of  the  fairies  was  so  bad  that 
it  might  better  have  been  omitted.  Puck  should  not  have  been 
given  by  a  woman,  but  by  a  boy  as  he  was  in  Shakespeare's  day. 
Only  the  clown  scenes  were  unqualifiedly  good,  "as  we  might 
expect,"  concludes  the  reviewer  sarcastically. 

The  article  closes  with  a  parting  shot  at  the  costuming  and 
the  scenery.  Not  a  little  of  it  was  inherited  from  "Orpheus  in 
the  Lower  World."  Are  we  so  poor  as  that?  Better  wait,  and 
for  the  present,  give  something  which  demands  less  of  the  theatre. 


63 

The  critic  grants  that  the  presentation  may  prove  profitable  but, 
on  the  whole,  B jjzirnson  must  feel  that  he  has  assisted  at  the  mutila- 
tion of  a  master. 

Bj^mson  did  not  permit  this  attack  to  go  unchallenged. 
He  was  not  the  man  to  suffer  in  silence,  and  in  this  case  he  could 
not  be  silent.  His  directorate  was  an  experiment,  and  there  were 
those  in  Christiania  who  were  determined  to  make  it  unsuccess- 
ful. It  was  his  duty  to  set  malicious  criticism  right.  He  did 
so  in  Aftenhladet^^  in  an  article  which  not  only  answered  a  bit  of 
ephemeral  criticism  but  which  remains  to  this  day  an  almost 
perfect  example  of  Bj^mson's  polemical  prose — afresh,  vigorous, 
genuinely  eloquent,  with  a  marvelous  fusing  of  power  and  fancy. 

He  begins  with  an  analysis  of  the  play:  The  play  is  called 
a  dream.  But  wherein  lies  the  dream?  'Why,'  we  are  told,  *in 
the  fact  that  fairies  sport,  that  honest  citizens,  with  and  without 
asses'  heads,  put  on  a  comedy,  that  lovers  pursue  each  other  in 
the  moonlight. '  But  where  is  the  law  in  all  this?  If  the  play  is 
without  law  (Lov  =  organic  unity),  it  is  without  validity. 

But  it  does  have  artistic  validity.  The  dream  is  more  than 
a  fantasy.  The  same  experiences  come  to  all  of  us.  "The  play 
takes  place,  now  in  your  life,  now  in  mine.  A  young  man  happily 
engaged  or  happily  married  dreams  one  night  that  this  is  aU  a 
delusion.  He  must  be  engaged  to,  he  must  marry  another.  The 
image  of  the  *  chosen  one '  hovers  before  him,  but  he  can  not  quite 
visuaUze  it,  and  he  marries  with  a  bad  conscience.  Then  he 
awakens  and  thanks  God  that  it  is  all  a  bad  dream  (Lysander). 
Or  a  youth  is  tired  of  her  whom  he  adored  for  a  time.  He  even 
begins  to  flirt  with  another.  And  then  one  fine  night  he  dreams 
that  he  worships  the  very  woman  he  loathes,  that  he  implores 
her,  weeps  for  her,  fights  for  her  (Demetrius).  Or  a  young  girl, 
or  a  young  wife,  who  loves  and  is  loved  dreams,  that  her  beloved 
is  fleeing  from  her.  When  she  follows  him  with  tears  and  peti- 
tions, he  Hfts  his  hand  against  her.  She  pursues  him,  calls  to 
him  to  stop,  but  she  cannot  reach  him.  She  feels  all  the  agony 
of  death  till  she  falls  back  in  a  calm,  dreamless  sleep.  Or  she 
dreams  that  the  lover  she  cannot  get  comes  to  her  in  a  wood  and 
tells  her  that  he  really  does  love  her,  that  her  eyes  are  loveHer 

^°  April  28.  Reprinted  in  Bj0mson's  Taler  og  Skrifter.  Udgivet  af  C. 
CoUin  og  H.  Eitrem.  Kristiania.  1912.  Vol.  I,  pp.  263-270. 


64 

than  the  stars,  her  hands  whiter  than  the  snow  on  Taurus.  But 
other  visions  come,  more  confusing.  Another,  whom  she  has 
never  given  a  thought,  comes  and  tells  her  the  same  story.  His 
protestations  are  even  more  glowing — and  it  all  turns  to  contention 
and  sorrow,  idle  pursuit  and  strife,  till  her  powers  fail  (Helena). 

*'This  is  the  dream  chain  of  the  lovers.  The  poet  causes 
the  man  to  dream  that  he  is  unfaithful,  or  that  he  is  enamored  of 
one  whom  he  does  not  love.  And  he  makes  the  woman  dream 
that  she  is  deserted  or  that  she  is  happy  with  one  whom  she  can- 
not get.  And  together  these  dreams  tell  us:  watch  your  thoughts, 
watch  your  passions,  you,  walking  in  perfect  confidence  at  the  side 
of  your  beloved.  They  (the  thoughts  and  passions)  may  bring 
forth  a  flower  called  'love  in  idleness' — a  flower  which  changes 
before  you  are  aware  of  it.  The  dream  gives  us  reality  reversed, 
but  reversed  in  such  a  way  that  there  is  always  the  possibility 
that  it  may,  in  an  unguarded  moment,  take  veritable  shape. 

"And  this  dream  of  the  lovers  is  given  a  paradoxical  counter- 
part. A  respectable,  fat  citizen  dreams  one  night  that  he  is  to  ex- 
perience the  great  triumph  of  his  life.  He  is  to  be  presented  before 
the  duke's  throne  as  the  greatest  of  heroes.  He  dreams  that 
he  cannot  get  dressed,  that  he  cannot  get  his  head  attended  to, 
because,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  his  head  is  not  his  own  excellent  head, 
but  the  head  of  an  ass  with  long  ears,  a  snout,  and  hair  that  itches. 
'This  is  exactly  like  a  fairy  tale  of  my  youth,'  he  dreams.  And 
indeed,  it  is  a  dream!  The  mountain  opens,  the  captive  princess 
comes  forth  and  leads  him  in,  and  he  rests  his  head  in  her  lap  all 
strewn  with  blossoms.  The  lovely  trolls  come  and  scratch  his 
head  and  music  sounds  from  the  rocks.  It  is  characteristic  of 
Shakespeare  that  the  lovers  do  not  dream  fairy  tales  of  their 
childhood.  Higher  culture  has  given  them  deeper  passions,  more 
intense  personal  relations;  in  dreams  they  but  continue  the  life 
of  waking.  But  the  good  weaver  who  lives  thoroughly  content 
in  his  own  self-satisfaction  and  in  the  esteem  of  his  neighbors,  who 
has  never  reflected  upon  anything  that  has  happened  to  him, 
but  has  received  each  day's  blessings  as  they  have  come — this 
man  sees,  the  moment  he  lays  his  head  on  the  pillow,  the  fairies 
and  the  fairy  queen.  To  him  the  whole  circle  of  childhood  fan- 
tasy reveals  itself;  nothing  is  changed,  nothing  but  this  absurd  ass's 
head  which  he  wears,  and  this  curious  longing  for  dry,  sweet  hay. 


65 

"This  is  the  dream  and  the  action  of  the  play.  Superficially, 
all  this  magic  is  set  in  motion  by  the  fairies;  Theseus  and  his 
train,  with  whom  come  hunting  horn  and  hunting  talk  and  pro- 
cessional— are,  in  reality,  the  incarnation  of  the  festival.  And 
the  comedy  at  the  close  is  added  by  way  of  counterpiece  to  the 
Ught,  delicate  fancies  of  the  dream.  It  is  the  thoughts  we  have 
thought,  the  painfully-wrought  products  of  the  waking  mind, 
given  in  a  sparkle  of  mocking  laughter  against  the  background  of 
nightly  visions.  See  the  play  over  and  over  again.  Do  not 
study  it  with  Bottom's  ass's  head,  and  do  not  be  so  blase  that 
you  reject  the  performance  because  it  does  not  conmaand  the 
latest  electrical  effects. " 

Bj^mson  then  proceeds  to  discuss  the  staging.  He  admits 
by  implication  that  the  machinery  and  the  properties  are  not 
so  elaborate  as  they  sometimes  are  in  England,  but  points  out 
that  the  equipment  of  Christiania  Theater  is  fully  up  to  that  which, 
until  a  short  time  before,  was  considered  entirely  adequate  in  the 
great  cities  of  Europe.  And  is  machinery  so  important?  The 
cutting  of  the  play  used  at  this  performance  was  originally  made 
by  Tieck  for  the  court  theater  at  Potsdam.  From  Germany  it 
was  brought  to  Stockholm,  and  later  to  Christiania.  "The  spirit 
of  Tieck  pervades  this  adaptation.  It  is  easy  and  natural.  The 
spoken  word  has  abundant  opportunity  to  make  itself  felt,  and  is 
neither  overwhelmed  by  theater  tricks  nor  set  aside  by  machinery. 
Tieck,  who  understood  stage  machinery  perfectly,  gave  it  free 
play  where,  as  in  modem  operas,  machinery  is  everything.  The 
same  is  true  of  Mendelssohn.  His  music  yields  reverently  to 
the  spoken  word.  It  merely  accompanies  the  play  like  a  new 
fairy  who  strews  a  strain  or  two  across  the  stage  before  his  com- 
panions enter,  and  lends  them  wings  by  which  they  may  again 
disappear.  Only  when  the  words  and  the  characters  who  utter 
them  have  gone,  does  the  music  brood  over  the  forest  like  a  mist 
of  reminiscence,  in  which  our  imagination  may  once  more  syn- 
thesize the  picture  of  what  has  gone  before." 

Tieck's  adaptation  is  still  the  standard  one.  EngUshmen 
often  stage  Shakespeare's  romantic  plays  more  elaborately.  They 
even  show  us  a  ship  at  sea  in  The  Tempest.  But  Shakesp>eare 
has  fled  England;  they  are  left  with  their  properties,  out  of  which 
the  spirit  of  Shakespeare  will  not    rise.     It  is  significant  that 


66 

the  most  distinguished  dramaturg  of  Germany.  Dingelstedt, 
planned  a  few  years  before  to  go  to  London  with  some  of  the  best 
actors  in  Germany  to  teach  EngUshmen  how  to  play  Shakespeare 
once  more. 

Bj^rnson  closes  this  general  discussion  of  scenery  and  pro- 
perties with  a  word  about  the  supreme  importance  of  imagina- 
tion to  the  playgoer.  "I  cannot  refrain  from  saying  that  the 
imagination  that  delights  in  the  familiar  is  stronger  and  health- 
ier than  that  which  loses  itself  in  longings  for  the  impossible. 
To  visualize  on  the  basis  of  a  few  and  simple  suggestions — that 
is  to  possess  imagination;  to  allow  the  images  to  dissolve  and  dissi- 
pate— that  is  to  have  no  imagination  at  all.  Every  allusion  has 
a  definite  relation  to  the  familiar,  and  if  our  playgoers  cannot, 
after  all  that  has  been  given  here  for  years,  feel  the  least  illusion 
in  the  presence  of  the  properties  in  A  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dreamy 
then  it  simply  means  that  bad  critics  have  broken  the  spell.** 
Why  should  Norwegians  require  an  elaborate  wood-scene  to  be 
transported  to  the  living  woods?  A  boulevardier  of  Paris,  in- 
deed, might  have  need  of  it,  but  not  a  Norwegian  with  the  great 
forests  at  his  very  doors.  And  what  real  illusion  is  there  in  a 
waterfall  tumbling  over  a  painted  curtain,  or  a  ship  tossing  about 
on  rollers?  Does  not  such  apparatus  rather  destroy  the  illusion? 
"The  new  inventions  of  stage  mechanicians  are  far  from  being 
under  such  perfect  control  that  they  do  not  often  ruin  art.  We 
are  in  a  period  of  transition.  Why  should  we  here,  who  are  obliged 
to  wait  a  long  time  for  what  is  admittedly  satisfactory,  commit 
all  the  blunders  which  mark  the  way  to  acknowledged  perfection?  " 

It  would  probably  be  difficult  to  find  definite  and  tangible 
evidence  of  Shakespeare's  influence  in  Bj^rnson's  work,  and  we  are, 
therefore,  doubly  glad  to  have  his  own  eloquent  acknowledge- 
ment of  his  debt  to  Shakespeare.  The  closing  passus  of  Bj^rn- 
son's  article  deserves  quotation  for  this  reason  alone.  Unfor- 
tunately I  cannot  convey  its  warm,  illuminating  style:  "Of  all 
the  poetry  I  have  ever  read,  Shakespeare's  A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream  has,  unquestionably,  had  the  greatest  influence  upon  me. 
It  is  his  most  delicate  and  most  imaginative  work.  appeaHng  quite 
as  much  through  its  intellectual  significance  as  through  its  noble, 
humane  spirit.  I  read  it  first  in  Eiksdal  when  I  was  writing 
Arney  and  I  felt  rebuked  for  the  gloomy  feelings  under  the  spell 


67 

of  which  that  book  was  written.  But  I  took  the  lesson  to  heart: 
I  felt  that  I  had  in  my  soul  something  that  could  produce  a  play 
with  a  little  of  the  fancy  and  joy  of  A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream — and  I  made  resolutions.  But  the  conditions  under  which 
a  worker  in  art  lives  in  Norway  are  hard,  and  all  we  say  or  promise 
avails  nothing.  But  this  I  know:  I  am  closer  to  the  ideal  of  this 
play  now  than  then,  I  have  a  fuUer  capacity  for  joy  and  a  greater 
power  to  protect  my  joy  and  keep  it  inviolate.  And  if,  after 
all,  I  never  succeed  in  writing  such  a  play,  it  means  that  circum- 
stances ha\^e  conquered;  and  that  I  have  not  achieved  what  I 
have  ever  sought  to  achieve. 

"And  one  longs  to  present  a  play  which  has  been  a  guiding 
star  to  oneself.  I  knew  perfectly  well  that  a  public  fresh  from 
Orpheus  would  not  at  once  respond,  but  I  felt  assured  that  re- 
sponse would  come  in  time.  As  soon,  therefore,  as  I  had  become 
acclimated  as  director  and  knew  something  of  the  resources  of 
the  theater,  I  made  the  venture.  This  is  not  a  play  to  be  given 
toward  the  end;  it  is  too  valuable  as  a  means  of  gaining  that  which 
is  to  be  the  end — ^for  the  players  and  for  the  audience.  So  far  as 
the  actors  are  concerned,  our  exertions  have  been  profitable. 
The  play  might  doubtless  be  better  presented — we  shall  give 
it  better  next  year — but,  all  in  all,  we  are  making  progress.  You 
may  call  this  naivete,  poetic  innocence,  or  obstinacy  and  arro- 
gance— ^whatever  it  is,  this  play  is  of  great  moment  to  me,  for  it 
is  the  link  which  binds  me  to  my  public,  it  is  my  appeal  to  the 
public.  If  the  public  does  not  care  to  be  led  whither  this  leads, 
then  I  am  not  the  proper  guide.  K  people  wish  to  get  me  oat 
of  the  theater,  they  may  attack  me  here.    Here  I  am  vulnerable. " 

In  Morgenhladet  for  May  1st  the  reviewer  made  a  sharp  reply. 
He  insists  again  that  the  local  theater  is  not  equal  to  A  Midsummer 
Nights  Dream.  But  it  is  not  strange  that  Bj^mson  will  not 
admit  his  own  failure.  His  eloquent  tribute  to  the  play  and  all 
that  it  has  meant  to  him  has,  moreover,  nothing  to  do  with  the 
question.  All  that  he  says  may  be  true,  but  certainly  such  facts 
ought  to  be  the  very  thing  to  deter  him  from  giving  Shakespeare 
into  the  hands  of  untrained  actors.  .  For  if  Bj^rnson  feels  that 
the  play  was  adequately  presented,  then  we  are  at  a  loss  to  under- 
stand how  he  has  been  able  to  produce  original  work  of  unques- 
tionable merit.    One  is  forced  to  beUeve  that  he  is  hiding  a  failure 


68 

behind  his  own  name  and  fame.  After  all,  concludes  the  writer, 
the  director  has  no  right  to  make  this  a  personal  matter.  Criti- 
cism has  no  right  to  turn  aside  for  injured  feelings,  and  all  Bj0m- 
son's  declarations  about  the  passions  of  the  hour  have  nothing  to 
do  with  case. 

This  ended  the  discussion.  At  this  day,  of  course,  one  cannot 
pass  judgment,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should.  The  two 
things  which  stand  out  are  Bj^rnson's  protest  against  spectacular 
productions  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  and  his  ardent,  almost  pas- 
sionate tribute  to  him  as  the  poet  whose  influence  had  been  greatest 
in  his  hfe. 

And  then  there  is  a  long  silence.  Norwegian  periodicals — 
there  is  not  to  this  day  a  book  on  Shakespeare  by  a  Norwegian — 
contain  not  a  single  contribution  to  Shakespearean  criticism  till 
1880,  when  a  church  paper,  Luthersk  Ugeskrifty^^  published  an 
article  which  proved  beyond  cavil  that  Shakespeare  is  good  and 
safe  reading  for  Lutheran  Christians.  The  writer  admits  that 
Shakespeare  probably  had  several  irregular  love-affairs  both 
before  and  after  marriage,  but  as  he  grew  older  his  heart  turned 
to  the  comforts  of  religion,  and  in  his  epitaph  he  commends  his 
soul  to  God,  his  body  to  the  dust.  Shakespeare's  extreme  objec- 
tivity makes  snap  judgments  unsafe.  We  cannot  always  be  sure 
that  his  characters  voice  his  own  thoughts  and  judgments,  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  have  no  right  to  assume  that  they  never 
do.  The  tragedies  especially  afford  a  safe  basis  for  judgment,  for 
in  them  characterization  is  of  the  greatest  importance.  No  great 
character  was  ever  created  which  did  not  spring  from  the  poet's 
own  soul.  In  Shakespeare's  characters  sin,  lust,  cruelty,  are 
always  punished;  sympathy,  love,  kindness  are  everywhere  glori- 
fied.   The  writer  illustrates  his  meaning  with  copious  quotations. 

Apparently  the  good  Lutheran  who  wrote  this  article  felt 
troubled  about  the  splendor  which  Shakespeare  throws  about  the 
Catholic  Church.  But  this  is  no  evidence,  he  thinks,  of  any  spe- 
cial sympathy  for  it.  Many  Protestants  have  been  attracted 
by  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  they 
have  been  none  the  worse  Protestants  for  that.  The  writer  had 
the  good  sense  not  to  make  Shakespeare  a  Lutheran  but,  for  the 
rest,  the  article  is  a  typical  example  of  the  sort  of  criticism  that 

"Vol.  VII,  pp.  1-12. 


69 

has  made  Shakespeare  everything  from  a  pious  Catholic  to  a 
champion  of  atheistic  democracy.  If,  however,  the  readers  of 
Luthersk  Ugeskrift  were  led  to  read  Shakespeare  after  being  assured 
that  they  might  do  so  safely,  the  article  served  a  useful  purpose. 

Eight  years  later  the  distinguished  Htterateur  and  critic,  Just 
Bing,  wrote  in  Vidar^^,  one  of  the  best  periodicals  that  Norway  has 
ever  had,  a  brief  character  study  of  Ophelia,  which,  though  it  con- 
tains nothing  original,  stands  considerably  higher  as  Uterary 
criticism  than  anything  we  have  yet  considered,  with  the  sole 
exception  of  Bj^rnson's  article  in  Aftenbladetj  twenty-three  years 
earlier. 

Bing  begins  by  defining  two  kinds  of  writers.  First,  those 
whose  power  is  their  keen  observation.  They  see  things  accurately 
and  they  secure  their  effects  by  recording  just  what  they  see. 
Second,  those  writers  who  do  not  merely  see  external  phenomena 
with  the  external  eye,  but  who,  through  a  miraculous  intuition, 
go  deeper  into  the  soul  of  man.  Moliere  is  the  classical  example 
of  the  first  type;  Shakespeare  of  the  second.  To  him  a  chance 
utterance  reveals  feelings,  passions,  whole  lives — though  he  prob- 
ably never  developed  the  consequences  of  a  chance  remark  to  their 
logical  conclusion  without  first  applying  to  them  close  and  search- 
ing rational  processes.  But  it  is  clear  that  if  a  critic  is  to  analyze 
a  character  of  Shakespeare's,  he  must  not  be  content  merely  to 
observe.  He  must  feel  with  it,  live  with  it.  He  must  do  so  with 
special  sympathy  in  the  case  of  Opheha. 

The  common  characteristic  of  Shakespeare's  women  is  their 
devotion  to  the  man  of  their  choice  and  their  confidence  that  this 
choice  is  wise  and  happy.  The  tragedy  of  Ophelia  lies  in  the 
fact  that  outward  evidence  is  constantly  shocking  that  faith. 
Laertes,  in  his  worldly-wise  fashion,  first  warns  her.  She  cries 
out  from  a  broken  heart  though  she  promises  to  heed  the  warning. 
Then  comes  Polonius  with  his  cunning  wisdom.  But  Ophelia's 
faith  is  still  unshaken.  She  promises  her  father,  however,  to  be 
careful,  and  her  caution,  in  turn,  arouses  the  suspicion  of  Ham- 
let. Even  after  his  wild  outburst  against  her  he  still  loves  her. 
He  begs  her  to  beUeve  in  him  and  to  remember  him  in  her  prayers. 
But  suspicion  goes  on.  Opheha  is  caught  between  devotion  and 
duty,  and  the  grim  events  that  crowd  upon  her  plunge  her  to 

» 1880,  pp.  61-71. 


70 

sweet,  tragic  death.  Nothing  could  be 'more  revealing  than  our 
last  glimpse  of  her.  Shakespeare's  intuitive  knowledge  of  the 
soul  was  sure.  The  determining  fact  of  her  life  was  her  love  for 
Hamlet:  it  is  significant  that  when  we  see  her  insane  not  a  mention 
of  it  crosses  her  lips. 

Hamlet  and  Ophelia  are  the  delicate  victims  of  a  tragic  neces- 
sity. They  are  undone  because  they  lose  confidence  in  those  to 
whom  they  cling  with  all  the  abandon  of  deep,  spiritual  souls. 
Hamlet  is  at  last  aroused  to  desperation;  Ophelia  is  helplessly 
crushed.  She  is  the  finest  woman  of  Shakespeare's  imagination, 
and  perhaps  for  that  reason  the  most  difficult  to  understand  and 
the  one  least  often  appreciated. 

The  next  chapter  in  Norwegian  Shakespeareana  is  a  dull, 
unprofitable  one — a  series  of  articles  on  the  Baconian  theory  appear- 
ing irregularly  in  the  monthly  magazine,  Kringsjaa.  The  first 
article  appeared  in  the  second  volume  (1894)  and  is  merely  a 
review  of  a  strong  pro-Bacon  outburst  in  the  American  Arena.  It 
is  not  worth  criticising.  Similar  articles  appeared  in  Kringsjaa 
in  1895,  the  material  this  time  being  taken  from  the  Deutsche 
Revue.  It  is  the  old  ghost,  the  cipher  in  the  first  folio,  though 
not  Ignatius  Donnelly's  cryptogram.  Finally,  in  1898,  a  new 
editor,  Chr.  Brinckmann,  printed^^  a  crushing  reply  to  all  these 
cryptogram  fantasies.  And  that  is  all  that  was  ever  published 
in   Norway   on   a   foolish   controversy. 

It  is  a  relief  to  turn  from  puerihties  of  this  sort  to  Theodor 
Caspari's  article  in  For  Kirke  og  Kultur  (1895)^* — Grunddrag 
ved  den  Shakes  pear  eske  Digtning,i  sarlig  Jevnforelse  med  Ibsens 
senere  Digtning. 

This  article  must  be  read  with  caution,  partly  because  its 
analysis  of  the  Elizabethan  age  is  conventional,  and  therefore 
superficial,  and  partly  because  it  represents  a  direction  of  thought 
which  eyed  the  later  work  of  Ibsen  and  Bj^rnson  with  distrust. 
These  men  had  rejected  the  faith  of  their  fathers,  and  the  books 
that  came  from  them  were  signs  of  the  apostasy.  But  For  Kirke 
og  Kultur  has  been  marked  from  its  first  number  by  ability;  con- 
spicuous fairness,  and  a  large  catholicity,  which  give  it  an  honorable 

^3  Kringsjaa.    Vol.  XII,  pp.  777  ff.     The  article  upon  which  this  reply 
was  based  was  from  the  Quarterly  Review. 
"Vol.  I,  pp.  38 ff. 


71 

place  among  church  journals.  And  not  even  a  fanatical  admirer 
of  Ibsen  will  deny  that  there  is  more  than  a  grain  of  truth  in  the 
indictment  which  the  writer  of  this  article  brings  against  him. 

The  central  idea  is  the  large,  general  objectivity  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  as  contrasted  with  the  narrow,  selfish  subjectivity  of  Ib- 
sen's. The  difference  bottoms  in  the  difference  between  the  age 
of  Elizabeth  and  our  own.  Those  were  days  of  full,  pulsing, 
untrammeled  life.  Men  lived  big,  physical  lives.  They  had 
few  scruples  and  no  nerves.  Full-blooded  passions,  not  petty 
problems  of  pathological  psychology,  were  the  things  that  inter- 
ested poets  and  dramatists.  They  saw  life  fully  and  they  saw  it 
whole.  So  with  Shakespeare.  His  characters  are  big,  well- 
rounded  men;  they  are  not  laboratory  specimens.  They  live  in 
the  real  Elizabethan  world,  not  in  the  hothouse  of  the  poet's 
brain.  It  is  of  no  consequence  that  violence  is  done  to  "local 
color."  Shakespeare  beheld  all  the  world  and  all  ages  through 
the  lens  of  his  own  time  and  country,  but  because  the  men  he 
saw  were  actual,  living  beings,  the  characters  he  gives  us,  be  they 
mythological  figures,  Romans,  Greeks,  Italians,  or  Englishmen, 
have  universal  validity.  He  went  to  Italy  for  his  greatest  love- 
story.  That  gave  him  the  right  atmosphere.  It  is  significant 
that  Ibsen  once  thought  it  necessary  to  seek  a  suggestive  back- 
ground for  one  of  his  greatest  characters.  He  went  to  Finmarken 
for  Rebecca  West. 

Shakespeare's  characters  speak  in  loud,  emphatic  tones  and 
they  give  utterance  to  clear,  emphatic  thoughts.  There  is  no 
"twilight  zone"  in  their  thinking.  Ibsen's  men  and  women, 
like  the  children  at  Rosmersholm,  never  speak  aloud;  they  merely 
whimper  or  they  whisper  the  polite  innuendos  of  the  drawing  room. 
The  difference  lies  largely  in  the  difference  of  the  age.  But  Ibsen 
is  more  decadent  than  his  age.  There  are  great  ideas  in  our  time 
too,  but  Ibsen  does  not  see  them.  He  sees  only  the  "  thought. " 
Contrast  with  this  Shakespeare's  colossal  scale.  He  is  "loud- 
voiced"  but  he  is  also  "  many- voiced. "  Ibsen  speaks  in  a  salon 
voice  and  always  in  one  key.  And  the  remarkable  thing  is  that 
Shakespeare,  in  spite  of  his  compUcated  plots  is  always  clear. 
The  main  lines  of  the  action  stand  out  boldly.  There  is  always 
speed  and  movement — a  speed  and  movement  directly  caused 
by  powerful  feehngs.    He  makes  his  readers  think  on  a  bigger 


72 

scale  than  does  Ibsen.  His  passions  are  sounder  because  they 
are  larger  and  more  expansive. 

Shakespeare  is  the  dramatist  of  our  average  life;  Ibsen,  the 
poet  of  the  rare  exception.  To  Shakespeare's  problems  there  is 
always  an  answer;  underneath  his  storms  there  is  peace,  not 
merely  filth  and  doubt.  There  is  even  a  sense  of  a  greater  power — 
calm  and  immovable  as  history  itself.  Ibsen's  plays  are  nervous, 
hectic,  and  unbelieving.  In  the  -words  of  Rosmer:  "Since  there 
is  no  judge  over  us,  we  must  hold  a  judgment  day  for  ourselves. " 
Contrast  this  with  Hamlet's  soliloquy.  And,  finally,  one  feels 
sure  in  Shakespeare  that  the  play  means  something.  It  has  a 
beginning  and  an  end.  "What  shall  we  say  of  plays  like  Ibsen's, 
in  which  Act  I  and  Act  II  give  no  clue  to  Act  III,  and  where  both 
question  and  answer  are  hurled  at  us  in  the  same  speech?'* 

In  the  same  year,  1895,  Georg  Brandes  pubHshed  in  Samtiden^^ 
at  that  time  issued  in  Bergen,  two  articles  on  Shakespeare^ s  Work 
in  his  Period  of  Gloom  (Shakespeare  i  bans  Digtnings  m^rke 
Periode)  which  embody  in  compact  form  that  thesis  since  ela- 
borated in  his  big  work.  Shakespeare's  tragedies  were  the  out- 
come of  a  deep  pessimism  that  had  grown  for  years  and  culminated 
when  he  was  about  forty.  He  was  tired  of  the  vice,  the  hoUow- 
ness,  the  ungratefulness,  of  life.  The  immediate  cause  must 
remain  unknown,  but  the  fact  of  his  melancholy  seems  clear 
enough.  His  comedy  days  were  over  and  he  began  to  portray 
a  side  of  life  which  he  had  hitherto  kept  hidden.  Jtdius  Caesar 
marks  the  transition.  In  Brutus  we  are  reminded  that  high- 
mindedness  in  the  presence  of  a  practical  situation  often  fails, 
and  that  practical  mistakes  are  often  as  fatal  as  moral  ones. 
From  Brutus,  Shakespeare  came  to  Hamlet,  a  character  in 
transition  from  fine  youth,  full  of  illusions,  to  a  manhood  whose 
faith  is  broken  by  the  hard  facts  of  the  world.  This  is  distinctly 
autobiographical.  Hamlet  and  Sonnet  66  are  of  one  piece. 
Shakespeare  was  disillusioned.  Add  to  this  his  struggle  against 
his  enemy,  Puritanism,  and  a  growing  conviction  that  the  miseries 
of  life  bottom  in  ignorance,  and  the  reason  for  his  growing 
pessimism  becomes  clear.  From  Hamlet,  whom  the  world  crushes, 
to  Macbeth,  who  faces  it  with  its  own  weapons,  yet  is  haunted  and 

^  Vol.  VI,  pp.  49  ff. 


73 

terriified  by  what  he  does,  the  step  is  easy.    He  knew  Macbeth 
as  he  knew  Hamlet. 

The  scheming  lago,  too,  he  must  have  known,  for  he  has 
portrayed  him  with  matchless  art.  "But  Othello  was  a  mere 
monograph;  Lear  is  a  cosmic  picture.  Shakespeare  turns  from 
Othello  to  Lear  in  consequence  of  the  necessity  which  the  poet 
feels  to  supplement  and  round  out  his  beginning."  Othello  is 
noble  chamber  music;  Lear  is  a  symphony  played  by  a  gigantic 
orchestra.  It  is  the  noblest  of  all  the  tragedies,  for  in  it  are  all 
the  storm  and  tumult  of  life,  all  that  was  strugghng  and  raging 
in  his  own  soul.  We  may  feel  sure  that  the  ingratitude  he  had  met 
with  is  reflected  in  Goneril  and  Regan.  Undoubtedly,  in  the 
same  way,  the  poet  had  met  the  lovely  Cleopatra  and  knew  what 
it  was  to  be  ensnared  by  her. 

Brandes,  as  has  often  been  pointed  out,  did  not  invent  this 
theory  of  Shakespeare's  psychology  but  he  elaborated  it  with  a 
skill  and  persuasiveness  which  carried  the  uncritical  away. 

In  his  second  article  Brandes  continues  his  analysis  of  Shake- 
speare's pessimism.  In  the  period  of  the  great  tragedies  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  Shakespeare  was  profoundly  pessimistic.  There 
was  abundant  reason  for  it.  The  age  of  Elizabeth  was  an  age  of 
glorious  sacrifices,  but  it  was  also  an  age  of  shameless  hypocrisy, 
of  cruel  and  unjust  punishments,  of  downright  oppression.  Even 
the  casual  observer  might  well  grow  sick  at  heart.  A  nature  so 
finely  balanced  as  Shakespeare's  suffered  a  thousandfold.  Hence 
this  contempt  for  life  which  showed  only  corruption  and  injustice. 
Cressida  and  Cleopatra  are  sick  with  sin  and  evil;  the  men  are  mere 
fools  and  brawlers. 

There  is,  moreover,  a  feeling  that  he  is  being  set  aside  for 
younger  men.  We  find  clear  expression  of  this  in  AWs  Well 
That  Ends  Wdly  in  Troilus  and  Cressida.  There  is,  too,  in  Troilus 
and  Cressida  a  speech  which  shows  the  transition  to  the  mood  of 
Coriolanus,  an  aristocratic  contempt  for  the  mass  of  mankind. 
This  is  the  famous  speech  in  which  Ulysses  explains  the  necessity 
of  social  distinctions.  Note  in  this  connection  Casca's  contemptu- 
ous reference  to  the  plebeians,  Cleopatra's  fear  of  being  shown  to 
the  mob.  Out  of  this  feeling  grew  Coriolanus.  The  great  patri- 
cian lives  on  the  heights,  and  will  not  hear  of  bending  to  the  crowd. 
The  contempt  of  Coriolanus  grew  to  the  storming  rage  of  Timon. 


74 

When  Coriolanus  meets  with  ingratitude,  he  takes  up  arms;  Timon 
is  too  supremely  indifferent  to  do  even  this. 

Thus  Shakespeare's  pessimism  grew  from  grief  over  the  power 
of  evil  (Othello)  and  misery  over  life's  sorrows,  to  bitter  hatred 
(Timon).  And  when  he  had  raged  to  the  uttermost,  something  of 
the  resignation  of  old  age  came  to  him.  We  have  the  evidence  of 
this  in  his  last  works.  Perhaps,  as  in  the  case  of  his  own  heroes, 
a  woman  saved  him.  Brandes  feels  that  the  evolution  of  Shake- 
speare as  a  dramatist  is  to  be  traced  in  his  women.  We  have 
first  the  domineering  scold,  reminding  him  possibly  of  his  own 
domestic  relations  (Lady  Macbeth);  second,  the  witty,  hand- 
some women  (Portia,  Rosalind);  third,  the  simple,  naive  women 
(Ophelia,  Desdemona);  fourth,  the  frankly  sensuous  women 
(Cleopatra,  Cressida) ;  and,  finally,  the  young  woman  viewed  with 
all  an  old  man's  joy  (Miranda).  Again  his  genius  exercises 
his  spell.  Then,  like  Prospero,  he  casts  his  magician's  staff  into 
the  sea. 

In  1896  Brandes  published  his  great  work  on  Shakespeare. 
It  arrested  attention  immediately  in  every  country  of  the  world. 
Never  had  a  book  so  fascinating,  so  brilliant,  so  wonderfully 
suggestive,  been  written  on  Shakespeare.  The  literati  were 
captivated.  But  alas,  scholars  were  not.  They  admitted  that 
Brandes  had  written  an  interesting  book,  that  he  had  accumulated 
immense  stores  of  information  and  given  to  these  sapless  materials 
a  new  life  and  a  new  attractiveness.  But  they  pointed  out  that 
not  only  did  his  work  contain  gross  positive  errors,  but  it  consisted, 
from  first  to  last,  of  a  tissue  of  speculations  which,  however  in- 
genious, had  no  foundation  in  fact  and  no  place  in  cool-headed 
criticism.^®  Theodor  Bierfreund,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  Shake- 
speare scholars  in  Denmark,  almost  immediately  attacked  Brandes 
in  a  long  article  in  the  Norwegian  periodical  SamtidenP 

He  acknowledges  the  great  merits  of  the  work.  It  is  an 
enormously  rich  compilation  of  Shakespeare  material  gathered 
from  the  four  corners  of  the  earth  and  illuminated  by  the  genius  of 
a  great  writer.  He  gives  the  fullest  recognition  to  Brandes' 
miraculous  skill  in  analyzing  characters  and  making  them  live 

w  Cf .  Vilhehn  M0ller  in  Nordisk  Tidskrift  for  Vetenskap,  Konst  och  Indus- 
tri.     1896,  pp.  501-519. 

^•' Samtiden,  1896.  (VII),  pp.  382  ff. 


75 

before  our  eyes.  But  he  warns  us  that  Brandes  is  no  critical 
student  of  source  materials,  and  that  we  must  be  on  our  guard  in 
accepting  his  conclusions.  It  is  not  so  certain  that  the  sonnets 
mean  all  that  Brandes  would  have  them  mean,  and  it  is  certain 
that  we  must  be  cautious  in  inferring  too  much  from  Troilus  and 
Cressida  and  Pericles  for,  in  the  opinion  of  the  reviewer,  Shake- 
speare probably  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  them.  He  then 
sketches  briefly  his  theory  that  these  plays  cannot  be  Shakespeare's, 
a  theory  which  he  later  elaborated  in  his  admirably  written  mono- 
graph, Shakespeare  og  hans  Kunst}^  This,  however,  belongs  to 
the  study  of  Shakespearean  criticism  in  Denmark. 

So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  find,  Bierfreund's  review  was 
the  only  one  published  in  Norway  immediately  after  the  publication 
of  Brandes'  work,  but  in  1899,  S.  Brettville  Jensen  took  up  the 
matter  again  in  For  Kirke  og  Ktdtur^^  and,  in  1901,  Christen 
Collin  vigorously  assailed  in  Samtiden  that  elaborate  and  fanci- 
ful theory  of  the  sonnets  which  plays  so  great  a  part  in  Brandes' 
study  of  Shakespeare. 

Brettville  Jensen  praises  Brandes  highly.  He  is  always 
interesting,  in  harmony  with  his  age,  and  in  rapport  with  his 
reader.  "  But  his  book  is  a  fantasy  palace,  supported  by  columns 
as  lovely  as  they  are  hollow  and  insecure,  and  hovering  in  rain- 
bow mists  between  earth  and  sky."  Brandes  has  rare  skill  in 
presenting  hypotheses  as  facts.  He  has  attempted  to  recon- 
struct the  life  of  Shakespeare  from  his  works.  Now  this  is  a  mode 
of  criticism  which  may  yield  valuable  results,  but  clearly  it  must 
be  used  with  great  care.  Shakespeare  knew  the  whole  of  life, 
but  how  he  came  to  know  it  is  another  matter.  Brandes  thinks 
he  has  found  the  secret.  Back  of  every  play  and  every  character 
there  is  a  personal  experience.  But  this  is  rating  genius  alto- 
gether too  cheap.  One  must  concede  something  to  the  imagina- 
tion and  the  creative  abiUty  of  the  poet.  To  relate  everything 
in  Shakespeare's  dramas  to  the  experiences  of  Shakespeare  the  man, 
is  both  fanciful  and  uncritical. 

The  same  objection  naturally  holds  regarding  the  meaning 
of  the  sonnets  which  Brandes  has  made  his  own.  Here  we  must 
bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  much  of  the  language  in  the  sonnets  is 

"  Copenhagen,  189B. 

»» Vol.  VI  (1899),  pp.  400  ff. 


7(i 

purely  conventional.  We  should  have  a  difficult  time  indeed 
determining  just  how  much  is  biographical  and  how  much  belongs 
to  the  stock  in  trade  of  Elizabethan  sonneteers.  Brettville  Jen- 
sen points  out  that  if  the  sonnets  are  the  expression  of  grief  at 
the  loss  of  his  beloved,  it  is  a  queer  contradiction  that  Sonnet  144, 
which  voices  his  most  poignant  sorrow,  should  date  from  1599, 
the  year,  according  to  Brandes,  when  Shakespeare's  comedy 
period  began ! 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  the  plays  and  even  the  sonnets  mark 
great  periods  in  the  life  of  the  poet,  but  we  may  be  sure  that  the 
relation  between  experience  and  literary  creation  was  not  so 
Hteral  as  Brandes  would  have  us  believe.  The  change  from  mood 
to  mood,  from  play  to  play,  was  gradual,  and  it  never  destroyed 
Shakespeare's  poise  and  sanity.  We  shall  not  judge  Shakespeare 
rightly  if  we  believe  that  personal  feeling  rather  than  artistic 
truth  shaped  his  work. 

Two  years  later  Collin,  a  critic  of  fine  insight  and  appreciation, 
wrote  in  SamtiderP  an  article  on  the  sonnets  of  Shakespeare. 
He  begins  by  picturing  Shakespeare's  surprise  if  he  could  rise 
from  his  grave  in  the  little  church  at  Stratford  and  look  upon  the 
pompous  and  rather  naive  bust,  and  hear  the  strange  tongues  of 
the  thousands  of  pilgrims  at  his  shrine.  Even  greater  would  be  his 
surprise  if  he  could  examine  the  ponderous  tomes  in  the  Shake- 
speare Memorial  Library  at  Birmingham  which  have  been  written 
to  explain  him  and  his  work.  And  if  any  of  these  volumes  could 
interest  him  at  all  it  would  doubtless  be  those  in  which  ingenious 
critics  have  attempted  to  discover  the  poet  in  the  plays  and  the 
poems.  Collin  then  gives  a  brief  survey  of  modern  Shakespearean 
criticism — Furnivall,  Dowden,  Brandl,  Boas,  ten  Brink,  and, 
more  recently,  Sidney,  Lee,  Brandes^  and  Bierfreund.  An  im- 
portant object  of  the  study  of  these  men  has  been  to  fix  the  chro- 
nology of  the  plays.  They  seldom  fully  agree.  Sidney  Lee  and 
the  Danish  critic,  Bierfreund,  do  not  accept  the  usual  theory  that 
the  eight  tragedies  from  Julius  Caesar  to  Coriolanus  reflect  a  period 
of  gloom  and  pessimism.  In  their  opinion  psychological  criticism 
has,  in  this  instance;  proved  a  dismal  failure. 

The  battle  has  raged  with  particular  violence  about  the  son- 
nets.   Most  scholars  assume  that  we  have  in  them  a  direct  pre- 

20  Vol.  XII,  pp.  61  ff. 


77 

sentation  (fremstilling)  of  a  definite  period  in  the  life  of  the  poet. 
And  by  placing  this  period  directly  before  the  creation  of  Hamlet, 
Brandes  has  succeeded  in  making  the  relations  to  the  "dark  lady" 
a  crisis  in  Shakespeare's  life.  The  story,  which,  as  Brandes  tells 
it,  has  a  remarkable  similarity  to  an  ultra-modem  naturalistic 
novel,  becomes  even  more  piquant  since  Brandes  knows  the  name 
of  the  lady,  nay,  even  of  the  faithless  friend.  All  this  information 
Brandes  has,  of  course,  taken  from  Thomas  Tyler's  introduction 
to  the  Irving  edition  of  the  sonnets  (1890),  but  his  passion  for  the 
familiar  anecdote  has  led  him  to  embellish  it  with  immense  enthu- 
siasm and  circumstantiality. 

The  hypothesis,  however,  is  essentially  weak.  ColUn  disa- 
grees absolutely  with  Lee  that  the  sonnets  are  purely  conventional, 
without  the  sHghtest  biographical  value.  Mr.  Lee  has  weakened 
his  case  by  admitting  that  "key-sonnet"  No.  144  is  autobio- 
graphical. Now,  if  this  be  true,  then  one  must  assume  that  the 
sonnets  set  forth  Shakespeare's  relations  to  a  real  man  and  a  real 
woman.  But  the  most  convincing  argument  against  the  Her- 
bert-Fitton  theory  lies  in  the  chronology.  It  is  certain  that  the 
sonnet  fashion  was  at  its  height  immediately  after  the  publication 
of  Sidney's  sequence  in  1591,  and  it  seems  equally  certain  that 
it  had  fallen  off  by  1598.  This  chronology  is  rendered  probable 
by  two  facts  about  Shakespeare's  work.  First,  Shakespeare 
employs  the  sonnet  in  dialogue  in  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  and 
in  Romeo  and  Juliet.  These  plays  belong  to  the  early  nineties. 
Second,  the  moods  of  the  sonnets  exactly  correspond,  on  the  one 
hand,  to  the  exuberant  sensuaHty  of  Venus  and  Adonis ,  on  the 
other,  to  the  restraint  of  the  Lucrece. 

An  even  safer  basis  for  determining  the  chronology  of  the 
sonnets  Collin  finds  in  the  group  in  which  the  poet  laments  his 
poverty  and  his  outcast  state.  If  the  sonnets  are  autobiographi- 
cal— ^and  Collin  agrees  with  Brandes  that  they  are — then  this  group 
(26,  29,  30,  31,  37,  49,  66,  71-75,  99,  110-112,  116,  119,  120,  123, 
and  124)  must  refer  to  a  time  when  the  poet  was  wretched,  poor, 
and  obscure.  And  in  this  case,  the  sonnets  cannot  be  placed  at 
1598-99,  when  Shakespeare  was  neither  poor  nor  despised,  a  time 
in  which,  according  to  Brandes,  he  wrote  his  gayest  comedies. 

It  seems  clear  from  all  this  that  the  sonnets  cannot  be  placed 
so  late  as  1598-1600.    They  do  not  fit  the  facts  of  Shakespeare's 


78 

life  at  this  time.  But  they  do  fit  the  years  from  1591  to  1594, 
and  especially  the  years  of  the  plague,  1592-3.  when  the  theaters 
were  generally  closed,  and  Shakespeare  no  doubt  had  to  battle 
for  a  mere  existence.  In  1594  Shakespeare's  position  became 
more  secure.  He  gained  the  favor  of  Southampton  and  dedicated 
the  Rape  of  Lucrece  to  him. 

Collin  develops  at  this  point  with  a  good  deal  of  fullness  his 
theory  that  the  motifs  of  the  sonnets  recur  in  Venus  and  Adonis 
and  Lucrece — in  Venus  and  Adonis^  a  certain  crass  naturalism;  in 
Lucrece  a  high  and  spiritual  morality.  In  the  sonnets  the  same 
antithesis  is  found.  Compare  Sonnet  116 — in  praise  of  friend- 
ship-with  129,  in  which  is  pictured  the  tyranny  and  the  treachery 
of  sensual  love.  These  two  forces,  sensual  love  and  platonic 
friendship,  were  mighty  cultural  influences  during  Shakespeare's 
apprentice  years  and  the  young  poet  shows  plainly  that  he  was 
moved  by  both. 

If  all  this  be  true,  then  the  Herbert-Fitton  theory  falls  to  the 
ground,  for  in  1597  Herbert  was  only  seventeen.  But  unques- 
tionably the  sonnets  are  autobiographical.  They  reveal  with  a 
poignant  power  Shakespeare's  sympathy,  his  unique  ability  to 
enter  into  another  personality,  his  capacity  of  imaginative  expan- 
sion to  include  the  lives  of  others.  Compare  the  noble  sonnet 
112,  which  Collin  translates: 

Din  kjaerlighed  og  medynk  daekker  til 

det  ar,  som  sladderen  paa  min  pande  trykket. 

Lad  andre  tro  og  sige,  hvad  de  vil, — 

du  kjaerlig  mine  feil  med  fortrin  smykket. 

Du  er  mit  verdensalt,  og  fra  din  mund 
jeg  henter  al  min  skam  og  al  min  aere. 
For  andre  er  jeg  dj^d  fra  denne  stund, 
og  de  for  mig  som  skygger  blot  skal  vaere. 

I  avgrunds  dyp  jeg  al  bekymring  kaster! 
for  andres  r0st  min  hj^resans  er  sl^v. 
Hvadenten  de  mig  roser  eller  laster, 
jeg  som  en  hugorm  er  og  vorder  d^v. 

Saa  helt  du  fylder  ut  min  sjael  herinde, 
at  hele  verden  synes  at  forsvinde. 

At  this  point  the  article  in  Samtiden  closes.  Collin  promises 
to  give  in  a  later  number,  a  metrical  translation  of  a  number  of 


79 

significant  sonnets.  The  promised  renderings,  however,  never 
appeared.  Thirteen  years  later,  in  1914,  the  author,  in  a  most 
interesting  and  illuminatmg  book,  Det  Geniale  Menneske,^^  a 
study  of  "genius"  and  its  relation  to  civilization,  reprinted  his 
essay  in  Samtiden  and  supplemented  it  with  three  short  chapters. 
In  the  first  of  these  he  endeavors  to  show  that  in  the  sonnets 
Shakespeare  gives  expression  to  two  distinct  tendencies  of  the 
Renaissance — the  tendency  toward  a  loose  and  unregulated 
gratification  of  the  senses,  and  the  tendency  toward  an  elevated 
and  platonic  conception  of  friendship.  Shakespeare  sought  in 
both  of  these  a  compensation  for  his  own  disastrous  love  affair 
and  marriage.  But  the  healing  that  either  could  give  was  at  best 
transitory.  There  remained  to  him  as  a  poet  of  genius  one  re- 
source. He  could  gratify  his  own  burning  desire  for  a  pure  and 
unselfish  love  by  living  in  his  mighty  imagination  the  lives  of  his 
characters.  "He  who  in  his  yearning  for  the  highest  joys  of 
love  had  been  compelled  to  abandon  hope^  found  a  joy  mingled 
with  pain  in  giving  of  his  life  to  lovers  in  whom  the  longing  of 
William  Shakespeare  lives  for  all  time. 

"He  has  loved  and  been  loved.  It  was  he  whom  Sylvia, 
Hermia,  Titania,  Portia,  Juliet,  Beatrice,  Rosalind,  Viola,  and 
Olivia  loved, — and  Ophelia,  Desdemona,  Hermione  and  Miranda. " 

In  the  second  chapter  Collin  argues,  as  he  had  done  in  his 
essay  on  Hamlet^  that  Shakespeare's  great  tragedies  voice  no 
pessimism,  but  the  stern  purpose  to  strengthen  himself  and  his 
contemporaries  against  the  evils  and  vices  of  Jacobean  England — 
that  period  of  moral  and  intellectual  disintegration  which  fol- 
lowed the  intense  life  of  the  Elizabethan  age.  Shakespeare  battles 
against  the  ills  of  society  as  the  Greek  dramatists  had  done,  by 
showing  sin  and  wickedness  as  destroyers  of  life,  and  once  this 
is  done,  by  firing  mankind  to  resistance  against  the  forces  of  ruin 
and  decay.  "To  hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature,"  that  men  may 
see  the  devastation  which  evil  and  vice  bring  about  in  the  social 
body.  And  to  do  this  he  does  not,  like  some  modern  writers, 
shun  moralizing.  He  warns  against  sensual  excess  in  Adam's 
speech  m  As  You  Like  It,  II,  3: 

21  Chr.   Collin,  Christiania.  1914.  H.  Aschehoug  &  Co. 

22  See  pp.  71  ff.  below. 


80 


Let  me  be  your  servant; 
Though  I  look  old,  yet  am  I  strong  and  lusty; 
For  in  my  youth  I  never  did  apply 
Hot  and  rebellious  liquors  in  my  blood; 
Nor  did  not  with  unbashful  forehead  woo 
The  means  of  weakness  and  debility; 

Or,  compare  the  violent  outburst  against  drunkenness  in  Hamlet 
Act  1,  Sc.  4,  and  the  stern  warning  against  the  same  vice  in  Othello, 
where,  indeed,  Cassius'  weakness  for  strong  drink  is  the  immediate 
occasion  of  the  tragic  complication.  In  like  manner,  Shakespeare 
moralizes  against  lawless  love  in  the  Merry  Wives,  in  Troilus  and 
Cressida,  in  Hamlet,  in  Lear. 

On  the  other  hand,  Shakespeare  never  allows  artistic  scruples 
to  stand  in  the  way  of  exalting  simple,  domestic  virtues.  Simple 
conjugal  fideUty  is  one  of  the  glories  of  Hamlet's  illustrious  father 
and  of  the  stern,  old  Roman,  Coriolanus;  the  young  prince,  Mal- 
colm, is  as  chaste  and  innocent  as  the  young  barbarians  of  whom 
Tacitus  tells. 

In  a  final  section,  Collin  connects  this  view  of  Hamlet  which 
he  has  developed  in  his  essay  on  Hamlet  and  the  Sonnets,  with  the 
theory  of  human  civilization  which  his  book  so  suggestively 
advances. 

The  great  tragedies  from  Hamlet  to  Timon  of  Athens  are  not 
autobiographical  in  the  sense  that  they  are  reflections  of  Shake- 
speare's own  concrete  experience.  They  are  not  the  record  of  a 
bitter  personal  pessimism.  In  the  years  when  they  were  written 
Shakespeare  was  contented  and  prosperous.  He  restored  the 
fortunes  of  his  family  and  he  was  hailed  as  a  master  of  English 
without  a  peer.  It  is  therefore  a  priori  quite  unlikely  that  the 
tragic  atmosphere  of  this  period  should  go  back  to  purely  person- 
al disappointments.  The  case  is  more  likely  this:  Shakespeare 
had  grown  in  power  of  sympathy  with  his  fellows  and  his  time. 
He  had  become  sensitive  to  the  needs  and  sorrows  of  the  society 
about  him.  He  could  put  himself  in  the  place  of  those  who  are 
sick  in  mind  and  heart.  And  in  consequence  of  this  he  could 
preach  to  this  generation  the  simple  gospel  of  right  living  and 
show  to  them  the  psychic  weakness  whence  comes  all  human 
sorrow. 

And  through  this  expansion  of  his  ethical  consciousness  what 
had  he  gained?    Not  merely  a  fine  insight  as  in  Macbeth,  Antony 


81 

aftd  Cleopatra,  and  Cariolanus,  an  insight  which  enables  him  to 
treat  with  comprehending  sympathy  even  great  criminals  and 
traitors,  but  a  high  serenity  and  steady  poise  which  enables  him 
to  write  the  romances  of  his  last  years — Cymbeline,  A  WitUer's 
Tale,  and  The  Tempest.  He  had  come  to  feel  that  human  life, 
after  all,  with  its  storms,  is  a  Uttle  thing,  a  dream  and  a  fata 
morgana,  which  soon  must  give  place  to  a  permanent  reality: 

We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  of,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep. 

In  1904  Collin  wrote  in  Nordisk  Tidskrift  for  Vetenskap,  Konst 
och  Industri^^  a  most  suggestive  article  on  Hamlet.  He  again 
dismisses  the  widely  accepted  theory  of  a  period  of  gloom  and 
increasing  pessimism  as  baseless.  The  long  Hne  of  tragedies 
cannot  be  used  to  prove  this.  They  are  the  expression  of  a  great 
poet's  desire  to  strengthen  mankind  in  the  battle  of  life. 

^This  article  is  reprinted  in  Det  Geniale  Menneske  above  referred  to. 
It  forms  the  second  of  a  group  of  essays  in  which  Collin  analyzes  the  work  of 
Shakespeare  as  the  finest  example  of  the  true  contribution  of  genius  to  the  pro- 
gress and  culture  of  the  race.  Preceding  the  study  of  Havtlei  is  a  chapter 
called  The  Shakespeareen  Controversy,  and  following  it  is  a  study  of  Shakespeare 
the  Man.  This  is  in  three  parts,  the  first  of  which  is  a  reprint  of  an  article  in 
Satntiden  (1901). 

In  Det  Geniale  Menneske  Collin  defines  civilization  as  that  higher  state 
which  the  hiunan  race  has  attained  by  means  of  "psychic  organs" — superior 
to  the  physical  organs.  The  psychic  organs  have  been  created  by  the  human 
intellect  and  they  are  controlled  by  the  intellect.  Had  man  been  dependent 
upon  the  physical  organs  solely,  he  would  have  remained  an  animal.  His 
psychic  organs  have  enabled  him  to  create  instrvunents,  tangible,  such  as 
tools  and  machines;  intangible,  such  as  works  of  art.  These  are  psychic 
organs  and  with  their  aid  man  has  become  a  civilized  being. 

The  psychic  organs  are  the  creation  of  the  man  of  genius.  To  create  such 
organs  is  his  function.  The  characteristics,  then,  of  the  genius  are  an  unmense 
capacity  for  sympathy  and  an  immense  surplus  of  power;  sympathy,  that  he 
may  know  the  needs  of  mankind;  power,  that  he  may  fashion  those  great 
organs  of  life  by  which  the  race  may  live  and  grow. 

In  the  various  chapters  of  his  book,  Collin  analyzes  in  an  illuminating  way 
the  life  and  work  of  Wergeland,  Ibsen,  and  Bjfimson  as  typical  men  of  genius 
whose  expansive  sympathy  gave  them  insight  and  understanding  and  whose 
indefatigable  energy  wrought  in  the  light  of  their  insight  mighty  psychic 
organs  of  cultural  progress. 

He  comes  then  to  Shakespeare  as  the  genius  par  excellence.  The  chapter 
on  the  Shakespearean  Controversy  gives  first  a  survey  of  the  development  of 


82 

We  need  dwell  but  little  on  Collin's  sketch  of  the  "Vorge- 
schichte"  of  Hamlet,  for  it  contributes  nothing  that  is  new.  Ham- 
let was  a  characteristic  "revenge  tragedy"  like  the  "Spanish 
Tragedy"  and  a  whole  host  of  others  which  had  grown  up  in 
England  under  the  influence,  direct  and  indirect,  of  Seneca.  He 
points  out  in  a  very  illuminating  way  how  admirably  the  "  tragedy 
of  blood"  fitted  the  times.  Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of 
the  renaissance  than  an  intense  joy  in  living.    But  exactly  as  the 

modem  scientific  literary  criticism  from  Herder  to  Taine  and  Saint  Beuve. 
He  goes  on  to  detail  the  application  of  this  method  to  the  plays  and  sonnets 
of  Shakespeare.  Fumivall,  Spalding,  and  Brandes  have  attempted  to  trace 
the  genesis  and  the  chronology  of  the  plays.  They  would  have  us  believe 
that  the  series  of  tragedies — Hamlet,  Macbeth,  Othello,  Lear,  Antony  and  Cleo- 
patra, Troilm  and  Cressida,  Coriolanus,  and  Timon  are  the  records  of  an  increas- 
ing bitterness  and  pessimism.  Brandes  and  Frank  Harris,  following  Thomas 
Tyler  have,  on  the  basis  of  the  sonnets,  constructed  a  fascinating,  but  quite 
fantastic  romance. 

Vagaries  such  as  these  have  caused  some  critics,  such  as  Sidney  Lee  and 
Bierfreujid  to,  declare  that  it  is  impossible  on  the  basis  of  the  plays  to  penetrate 
to  Shakespeare  the  man.  His  work  is  too  purely  objective.  Collin  is  not 
willing  to  admit  this.  He  maintains  that  the  scientific  biographical  method 
of  criticism  is  fundamentally  sound.  But  it  must  be  rationally  applied.  The 
sequence  which  Brandes  has  set  up  is  quite  impossible.  Goswin  K0nig,  in 
1888,  applying  the  metrical  tests,  fixed  the  order  as  follows:  Hamlet,  Troiltis 
and  Cressida,  Measure  for  Measure,  Othello,  Timon,  and  Lear,  and,  in  another 
group,  Macbeth,  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  and  Coriolanus.  These  results  are 
confirmed  by  Bradley  in  his  Shakespearean  Tragedy. 

Collin  accepts  this  chronology.  A  careful  study  of  the  plays  in  this  order 
shows  a  striking  community  of  ethical  purpose  between  the  plays  of  each 
group.  In  the  plays  of  the  first  group,  the  poet  assails  with  all  his  mighty 
wrath  what  to  him  seems  the  basest  of  all  wickedness,  treachery.  It  is  char- 
acteristic of  these  plays  that  none  of  the  villains  attains  the  dignity  of  a  great 
tragic  hero.  They  are  without  a  virtue  to  redeem  their  faults.  Shakespeare's 
conception  of  the  good  and  evil  in  these  plays  approaches  a  medieval  dualism. 
In  the  plays  of  the  second  group  the  case  is  altered.  There  is  no  longer  a 
crude  dualism  in  the  interpretation  of  life.  Shakespeare  has  entered  into 
the  soul  of  Macbeth  and  Lady  Macbeth,  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  of  Coriola- 
nus, and  he  has  found  underneath  all  that  is  weak  and  sinful  and  diseased,  a 
certain  nobility  and  grandeur.  He  can  feel  with  the  regicides  in  Macbeth; 
he  no  longer  exposes  and  scourges;  he  understands  and  sympathizes.  The 
clouds  of  gloom  and  wrath  have  cleared  away,  and  Shakespeare  has  achieved 
a  serenity  and  a  fine  poise. 

It  follows,  then,  that  the  theory  of  a  growing  pessimism  is  untenable. 
We  must  seek  a  new  line  of  evolution. 


83 

appetite  for  mere  existence  became  keen,  the  tragedy  of  death 
gained  in  power.  The  most  passionate  joy  instinctively  calls 
up  the  most  terrible  sorrow.  There  is  a  sort  of  morbid  caution 
here — a  feeUng  that  in  the  moment  of  happiness  it  is  well  to 
harden  oneself  against  the  terrible  reaction  to  come.  Conversely, 
the  contemplation  of  suffering  intensifies  the  joys  of  the  moment. 
At  all  events,  in  such  a  time,  emotions  become  stronger,  colors  are 
brighter,  and  contrasts  are  more  violent.  The  "  tragedy  of  blood, " 
therefore,  was  more  than  a  learned  imitation.  Its  sound  and  fury 
met  the  need  of  men  who  lived  and  died  intensely. 

The  primitive  Hamlet  was  such  a  play.  Shakespeare  took 
over,  doubtless  with  little  change,  both  fable  and  characters,  but 
he  gave  to  both  a  new  spiritual  content.  Hamlet's  revenge 
gained  a  new  significance.  It  is  no  longer  a  fight  against  the 
murderer  of  his  father,  but  a  battle  against  "a  world  out  of 
joint. "  No  wonder  that  a  simple  duty  of  blood  revenge  becomes 
a  task  beyond  his  powers.  He  sees  the  world  as  a  mass  of  faith- 
lessness, and  the  weight  of  it  crushes  him  and  makes  him  sick  at 
heart.  This  is  the  tragedy  of  Hamlet — his  will  is  paralyzed  and, 
with  it,  his  passion  for  revenge.  He  fights  a  double  battle,  against 
his  uncle  and  against  himself.  The  conviction  that  Shakespeare, 
and  not  his  predecessor,  has  given  this  turn  to  the  tragedy  is  sus- 
tained by  the  other  plays  of  the  same  period,  Lear  and  Timon  of 
Athens.  They  exhibit  three  different  stages  of  the  same  disease, 
a  disease  in  which  man's  natural  love  of  fighting  is  turned  against 
himself. 

Collin  denies  that  the  tragedy  of  Hamlet  is  that  of  a  con- 
templative soul  who  is  called  upon  to  solve  great  practical  prob- 
lems. What  right  have  we  to  assume  that  Hamlet  is  a  weak, 
excessively  reflective  nature?  Hamlet  is  strong  and  regal,  capa- 
ble of  great,  concrete  attainments.  But  he  can  do  nothing  except 
by  violent  and  eccentric  starts;  his  will  is  paralyzed  by  a  fatal 
sickness.  He  suffers  from  a  disease  not  so  uncommon  in  modern 
literature — the  tendency  to  see  things  in  the  darkest  light.  Is 
it  far  from  the  pessimism  of  Hamlet  to  the  pessimism  of  Schopen- 
hauer and  Tolstoi?  Great  souls  like  Bjnron  and  Heine  and  Ibsen 
have  seen  life  as  Hamlet  saw  it,  and  they  have  struggled  as  he  did, 
"like  wounded  warriors  against  the  miseries  of  the  times." 

But  from  this  we  must  not  assume  that  Shakespeare  himself 
was  pessimistic.    To  him  Hamlet's  state  of  mind  was  pathologi- 


84 

cal.  One  might  as  well  say  that  he  was  a  murderer  because  he 
wrote  Macbeth,  a  misogynist  because  he  created  characters  like 
Isabella  and  Ophelia,  a  wife  murderer  because  he  wrote  OthellOy 
or  a  suicide  because  he  wrote  Timon  of  Athens  as  to  say  that  he 
was  a  pessimist  because  he  wrote  Hamlet — the  tragedy  of  an  irre- 
solute avenger.  This  interpretation  is  contradicted  by  the  very 
play  itself.  "At  Hamlet's  side  is  the  thoroughly  healthy  Horatio, 
almost  a  standard  by  which  his  abnormality  may  be  measured. 
At  Lear's  side  stand  Cordelia  and  Kent,  faithful  and  sound  to  the 
core.  If  the  hater  of  mankind,  Timon,  had  written  a  play  about 
a  rich  man  who  was  betrayed  by  his  friends,  he  would  unques- 
tionably have  portrayed  even  the  servants  as  scoundrels.  But 
Shakespeare  never  presented  his  characters  as  all  black.  Patho- 
logical states  of  mind  are  not  presented  as  normal." 

ColHn  admits,  nevertheless,  that  there  may  be  something  auto- 
biographical in  the  great  tragedies.  Undoubtedly  Shakespeare 
felt  that  there  was  an  iron  discipline  in  beholding  a  great  tragedy. 
To  live  it  over  in  the  soul  tempered  it,  gave  it  firmness  and  reso- 
lution, and  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  sympathetic,  high-strung 
Shakespeare  needed  just  such  discipline.  But  we  must  not  forget 
the  element  of  play.  All  art  is,  in  a  sense,  a  game  with  images 
and  feelings  and  human  utterances.  "In  all  this  century-old 
discussion  about  the  subtlety  of  Hamlet's  character  critics  have 
forgotten  that  a  piece  of  literature  is,  first  of  all,  a  festive  sport 
with  clear  pictures,  finely  organized  emotions,  and  eloquent  words 
uttered  in  moments  of  deep  feeling. "  The  poet  who  remembers 
this  will  use  his  work  to  drive  from  the  earth  something  of  its 
gloom  and  melancholy.  He  will  strengthen  himself  that  he  may 
strengthen  others. 

I  have  tried  to  give  an  adequate  synopsis  of  Collin's  article 
but,  in  addition  to  the  difficulties  of  translating  the  language, 
there  are  the  difl&culties,  infinitely  greater,  of  putting  into  definite 
words  all  that  the  Norwegian  hints  at  and  suggests.  It  is  not 
high  praise  to  say  that  Collin  has  written  the  most  notable  piece 
of  Shakespeare  criticism  in  Norway;  indeed;  nothing  better  has 
been  written  either  in  Norway  or  Denmark. 

The  study  of  Shakespeare  in  Norway  was  not,  as  the  foregoing 
shows,  extensive  or  profound,  but  there  were  many  Norwegian 
scholars  who  had  at  least  considerable  information  about  things 


85 

Shakespearean.  No  great  piece  of  research  is  to  be  recorded,  but 
the  stimulating  criticism  of  Caspari,  ColUn,  Just  Bing,  and  B]^Tn- 
son  is  worth  reading  to  this  day. 

The  same  comment  may  be  made  on  two  other  contributions 
— Wiesener's  Almindelig  Indledning  til  Shakespeare  (General  Intro- 
duction to  Shakespeare),  published  as  an  introduction  to  his 
school  edition  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice,^  and  ColHn's  Indledning 
to  his  edition  of  the  same  play.  Both  are  frankly  compilations, 
but  both  are  admirably  organized,  admirably  written,  and  full 
of  a  personal  enthusiasm  which  gives  the  old,  sometimes  hack- 
neyed facts  a  new  interest. 

Wiesener's  edition  was  published  in  1880  in  Christiania.  The 
text  is  that  of  the  Cambridge  edition  with  a  few  necessary  cut- 
tings to  adapt  it  for  school  reading.  His  introduction  covers 
fifty-two  closely  printed  pages  and  gives,  within  these  limits,  an 
exceedingly  detailed  account  of  the  English  drama,  the  Eliza- 
bethan stage,  Shakespeare's  life  and  work;  and  a  careful  study  of 
The  Merchant  of  Venice  itself.  The  editor  does  not  pretend  to 
originaUty;  he  has  simply  tried  to  bring  together  well  ascertained 
facts  and  to  present  them  in  the  simplest,  clearest  fashion  possi- 
ble. But  the  Indledning  is  to-day,  thirty-five  years  after  it  was 
written,  fully  up  to  the  standard  of  the  best  annotated  school 
editions  in  this  country  or  in  England.  It  is,  of  course,  a  little 
dry  and  schematic;  that  could  hardly  be  avoided  in  an  attempt 
to  compress  such  a  vast  amount  of  information  into  such  a  small 
compass,  but,  for  the  most  part,  the  details  are  so  clear  and  vivid 
that  their  mass  rather  heightens  than  blurs  the  picture. 

From  the  fact  that  nothing  in  this  introduction  is  original, 
it  is  hardly  necessary  to  criticise  it  at  length;  all  that  may  be 
demanded  is  a  short  survey  of  the  contents.  The  whole  consists 
of  two  great  divisions,  a  general  introduction  to  Shakespeare  and 
a  special  introduction  to  The  Merchant  of  Venice.  The  first  divi- 
sion is,  in  turn,  subdivided  into  seven  heads:  1.  The  Pre-Shake- 
spearean  Drama.  2.  The  Life  of  Shakespeare.  3.  Shakespeare's 
Works — Order  and  Chronology.  4.  Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatist. 
5.  Shakespeare's  Versification.  6.  The  Text  of  Shakespeare.  7. 
The  Theatres  of  Shakespeare's  Time.    This  introduction  fills  thirty- 

^  Shakes peares  The  Merchant  of  Venice.  Med  Anmarkninger  og  Indled- 
ning.   Udgivet  af  G.  Wiesener.     Kristiania,   1880. 


86 


nine  pages  and  presents  an  exceedingly  useful  compendium  for 
the  student  and  the  general  reader.  The  short  introduction  to 
the  play  itself  discusses  briefly  the  texts,  the  sources,  the  characters, 
Shakespeare's  relation  to  his  material  and,  finally,  the  meaning 
of  the  play.  The  last  section  is,  however,  a  translation  from  Taine 
and  not  Wiesener's  at  all. 

The  text  itself  is  provided  with  elaborate  notes  of  the  usual 
text-book  sort.  In  addition  to  these  there  is,  at  the  back,  an 
admirable  series  of  notes  on  the  language  of  Shakespeare.  Wiese- 
ner  explains  in  simple,  compact  fashion  some  of  the  diiBFerences 
between  Elizabethan  and  modern  English  and  traces  these  pheno- 
mona  back  to  their  origins  in  Anglo-Saxon  and  Middle  English. 
Inadequate  as  they  are,  these  linguistic  notes  cannot  be  too  highly 
praised  for  the  conviction  of  which  they  bear  evidence — that  a 
complete  knowledge  of  Shakespeare  without  a  knowledge  of  his 
language  is  impossible.  To  the  student  of  that  day  these  notes 
must  have  been  a  revelation. 

The  second  text  edition  of  a  Shakespearean  play  in  Norway 
was  Collin's  The  Merchant  of  Venice.^  His  introduction  covers 
much  the  same  ground  as  Wiesener's,  but  he  offers  no  sketch  of 
the  Elizabethan  drama,  of  Shakespeare's  life,  or  of  his  develop- 
ment as  a  dramatic  artist.  On  the  other  hand,  his  critical  analy- 
sis of  the  play  is  fuller  and,  instead  of  a  mere  summary,  he  gives 
an  elaborate  exposition  of  Shakespeare's  versification. 

Collin  is  a  critic  of  rare  insight.  Accordingly,  although  he 
says  nothing  new  in  his  discussion  of  the  purport  and  content  of 
the  play,  he  makes  the  old  story  live  anew.  He  images  Shake- 
speare in  the  midst  of  his  materials — ^how  he  found  them,  how  he 
gave  them  life  and  being.  The  section  on  Shakespeare's  language 
is  not  so  solid  and  scientific  as  Wiesener's,  but  his  discussion  of 
Shakespeare's  versification  is  both  longer  and  more  valuable  than 
Wiesener's  fragmentary  essay,  and  Shakespeare's  relation  to  his 
sources  is  treated  much  more  suggestively. 

He  points  out,  first  of  all,  that  in  Shakespeare's  "classical" 
plays  the  characters  of  high  rank  commonly  use  verse  and  those 
of  low  rank,  prose.  This  is,  however,  not  a  law.  The  real  prin- 
ciple of  the  interchange  of  prose  and  verse  is  in  the  emotions  to 

^  The  Merchant  of  Venice.  Med  Indledning  og  Anmserkninger  ved  Chr. 
Collin.  Kristiania.  1902. 


87 

be  conveyed.  Where  these  are  tense,  passionate,  exalted,  they 
are  communicated  in  verse;  where  they  are  ordinary,  common- 
place, they  are  expressed  in  prose.  This  rule  will  hold  both  for 
characters  of  high  station  and  for  the  most  humble.  In  Act  I, 
for  example,  Portia  speaks  in  prose  to  her  maid  "obviously  be- 
cause Shakespeare  would  lower  the  pitch  and  reduce  the  suspense. 
In  the  following  scene,  the  conversation  between  Shylock  and 
Bassanio  begins  in  prose.  But  as  soon  as  Antonio  appears.  Shy- 
lock's  emotions  are  roused  to  their  highest  pitch,  and  his  speech 
turns  naturally  to  verse — even  though  he  is  alone  and  his  speech 
an  aside.  A  storm  of  passions  sets  his  mind  and  speech  in  rhyth- 
mic motion.  And  from  that  point  on,  the  conversations  of  Shylock, 
Bassanio,  and  Antonio  are  in  verse.  In  short,  rhythmic  speech 
when  there  is  a  transition  to  strong,  more  dramatic  feeling." 
The  use  of  prose  or  verse  depends,  then,  on  the  kind  and  depth 
of  feeUng  rather  than  on  the  characters.  "In  Act  II  Launcelot 
Gobbo  and  his  father  are  the  only  ones  who  employ  prose.  All 
the  others  speak  in  verse — even  the  servant  who  tells  of  Bassa- 
nio's  arrival.  Not  only  that,  but  he  speaks  in  splendid  verse  even 
though  he  is  merely  annoimcing  a  messenger:" 

"Yet  have  I  not  seen 
So  likely  an  ambassador  of  love, "  etc. 

Again,  in  Lear^  the  servant  who  protests  against  ComwaU's  cruelty 
to  Gloster,  nameless  though  he  is,  speaks  in  noble  and  stately 
lines: 

Hold  your  hand,  my  lord; 
IVe  served  you  ever  since  I  was  a  child; 
But  better  service  have  I  never  done  you 
Than  now  to  bid  you  hold. 

When  the  dramatic  feeling  warrants  it,  the  humblest  rise  to  the 
highest  poetry.  The  renaissance  was  an  age  of  deeper,  mightier 
feelings  than  our  own,  and  this  intense  life  speaks  in  verse,  for 
only  thus  can  it  adequately  express  itself. 

All  this  is  romantic  enough.  But  it  is  to  be  doubted  if  the 
men  of  the  renaissance  were  so  different  from  us  that  they  felt 
an  instinctive  need  of  bursting  into  song.  The  causes  of  the 
efflorescence  of  Elizabethan  dramatic  poetry  are  not,  I  think, 
to  be  sought  in  such  subtleties  as  these. 

Collin  further  insists  that  the  only  way  to  understand  Shake- 
speare's versification  is  to  understand  his  situations  and  his  char- 


88 

acters.  Rules  avail  little.  If  we  do  not  feel  the  meaning  of  the 
music,  we  shall  never  understand  the  meaning  of  the  verse.  Shake- 
speare's variations  from  the  normal  blank  verse  are  to  be  inter- 
preted from  this  point  of  view.  Hence  what  the  metricists  call 
"irregularities"  are  not  irregularities  at  all.  Collin  examines 
the  more  important  of  these  irregularities  and  tries  to  account 
for  them. 

1.  Short  broken  lines  as  in  I,  1-5:  I  am  to  learn.  Antonio 
completes  this  line  by  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders  or  a  gesture.  "It 
would  be  remarkable,"  concludes  Collin  "if  there  were  no  in- 
terruptions or  pauses  even  though  the  characters  speak  in  verse. " 
Another  example  of  this  breaking  of  the  line  for  dramatic  purposes 
is  found  in  1-3-1.3  where  Shylock  suddenly  stops  after  "say  this" 
as  if  to  draw  breath  and  arrange  his  features.  (Sic!) 

2.  A  verse  may  be  abnormally  long  and  contain  six  feet.  This 
is  frequently  accidental,  but  in  M  of  V  it  is  used  at  least  once 
deliberately — in  the  oracular  inscriptions  on  the  caskets: 

"Who  chooseth  me  shall  gain  what  men  desire." 
"Who  chooseth  me  shall  get  as  much  as  he  deserves." 
"Who  chooseth  me  must  give  and  hazard  all  he  has." 

Collin  explains  that  putting  these  formulas  into  Alexandrines 
gives  them  a  stiffness  and  formality  appropriate  to  their  purpose. 

3.  Frequently  one  or  two  light  syllables  are  added  to  the  close 
of  the  verse: 

Sit  like  his  grandsire  cut  in  alabaster. 

or 

Sleep  when  he  wakes  and  creep  into  the  jaundice. 
Again,  in  III,  2-214  we  have  two  unstressed  syllables: 

But  who  comes  here?    Lorenzo  and  his  infidel? 

"Shakespeare  uses  this  unaccented  gliding  ending  more  in  his 
later  works  to  give  an  easier    more  unconstrained  movement." 

4.  Occassionally  a  syllable  is  lacking,  and  the  foot  seems  to  halt 
asinV,  1-17: 

As  far  as  Belmont.     In  such  a  night,  etc. 
Here  a  syllable  is  lacking  in  the  third  foot.    But  artistically  this 
is  no  defect.    We  cannot  ask  that  Jessica  and  Lorenzo  always  have 
the  right  word  at  hand.    The  defective  line  simply  means  a  pause 
and,  therefore,  instead  of  being  a  blemish,  is  exactly  right. 


89 

5.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  often  an  extra  light  syllable 
before  the  caesura.  (I,  1-48) : 

Because  you  are  not  merry;  and  'twere  as  easy,  etc. 

This  extra  syllable  before  the  pause  gives  the  effect  of  a  slight 
retardation.  It  was  another  device  to  make  the  verse  easy  and 
uncon<^  trained. 

6.  Though  the  prevailing  verse  is  iambic  pentameter,  we  rarely 
find  more  than  three  or  four  real  accents.  The  iambic  movement 
is  constantly  broken  and  compelled  to  fight  its  way  through.  This 
gives  an  added  delight,  since  the  ear,  attuned  to  the  iambic  beat, 
readily  recognizes  it  when  it  recurs.  The  presence  of  a  trochee 
is  no  blemish,  but  a  relief: 

Vailing  her  high  tops  higher  than  her  ribs.  (1-1-28) 

This  inverted  stress  occurs  frequently  in  Norwegian  poetry. 
Wergeland  was  a  master  of  it  and  used  it  with  great  effect,  for 
instance,  in  his  poem  to  Ludvig  Daa  beginning: 

Med  d0den  i  mit  hjerte, 
og  smilet  om  min  mund, — 

All  this  gives  to  Shakespeare's  verse  a  marvellous  flexibility 
and  power.  Nor  are  these  devices  all  that  the  poet  had  at  his 
disposal.  We  frequently  find  three  syllables  to  the  foot,  giving 
the  line  a  certain  fluidity  which  a  translator  only  rarely  can  repro- 
duce. Finally,  a  further  difficulty  in  translating  Shakespeare 
Hes  in  the  richness  of  the  EngUsh  language  in  words  of  one  syllable. 
What  Uterature  can  rival  the  grace  and  smoothness  of: 

In  sooth  I  know  not  why  I  am  so  sad. 

Ten  monosyllables  in  succession !  It  is  enough  to  drive  a  translator 
to  despair.    Or  take: 

To  be  or  not  to  be,  that  is  the  question. 

To  summarize,  no  other  language  can  rival  EngHsh  in  dramatic 
dialogue  in  verse,  and  this  is  notably  true  of  Shakespeare's  Eng- 
lish, where  the  word  order  is  frequently  simpler  and  more  elastic 
than  it  is  in  modern  Enghsh. 

Two  reviews  of  Collin  quickly"  appeared  in  a  pedagogical 
magazine.  Den  Hoiere  Skole.    The  first  of  them,^  by  Ivar  Alnaes, 

»Vol.  5  (1903),  pp.  51  ff. 


90 

is  a  brief,  rather  perfunctory  review.  He  points  out  that  The 
Merchant  of  Venice  is  especially  adapted  to  reading  in  the  gym- 
nasium, for  it  is  unified  in  structure,  the  characters  are  clearly 
presented,  the  language  is  not  difficult,  and  the  picture  is  worth 
while  historically.  Collin  has,  therefore,  done  a  great  service  in 
making  the  play  available  for  teaching  purposes.  Alnaes  warmly 
praises  the  introduction;  it  is  clear,  full,  interesting,  and  marked 
throughout  by  a  tone  of  genuine  appreciation.  But  right  here 
lies  its  weakness.  It  is  not  always  easy  to  distinguish  ascertained 
facts  from  Collin's  imaginative  combinations.  Every  page, 
however,  gives  evidence  of  the  editor's  endeavor  to  give  to  the 
student  fresh,  stimulating  impressions,  and  new,  revealing  points 
of  view.  This  is  a  great  merit  and  throws  a  cloak  over  many 
eccentricities  of  language. 

But  Collin  was  not  to  escape  so  easily.  In  the  same  volume 
Dr.  August  Western^^  wrote  a  severe  criticism  of  Collin's  treat- 
ment of  Shakespeare's  versification. 

He  agrees,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  Shakespeare  is  a  master 
of  versification,  but  he  does  not  believe  that  Colhn  has  proved 
it.  That  blank  verse  is  the  natural  speech  of  the  chief  characters 
or  of  the  minor  characters  under  emotional  stress,  that  prose  is 
usually  used  by  minor  characters  or  by  important  characters  under 
no  emotional  strain  is,  in  Dr.  Western's  opinion,  all  wrong.  Nor 
is  prose  per  se  more  restful  than  poetry.  And  is  not  Shylock 
more  emotional  in  his  scene  (1, 3)  than  any  of  the  characters  in 
the  casket  scene  immediately  following  (II,  1)?  According  to 
Collin,  then,  I,  3  should  be  in  verse  and  II,  1  in  prose!  Equally 
absurd  is  the  theory  that  Shakespeare's  characters  speak  in  verse 
because  their  natures  demand  it.  Does  Shylock  go  contrary  to 
nature  in  III,  1?  There  is  no  psychological  reason  for  verse  in 
Shakespeare.  He  wrote  as  he  did  because  convention  prescribed 
it.  The  same  is  true  of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  of  Bj0rnson  and 
Ibsen  in  their  earlier  plays.  Shakespeare's  lapses  into  prose 
are,  moreover,  easy  to  explain.  There  must  always  be  something 
to  amuse  the  gallery.  Act  III,  1  must  be  so  understood,  for  though 
Shakespeare  was  undoubtedly  moved,  the  effect  of  the  scene  was 
comic.  The  same  is  true  of  the  dialogue  between  Portia  and  Neris- 
sa  in  Act  I,  and  of  all  the  scenes  in  which  Launcelot  Gobbo  appears. 

"/i«f.  pp.  142  ff. 


91 

Western  admits,  however,  that  much  of  the  prose  in  Shake- 
speare cannot  be  so  explained;  for  example,  the  opening  scenes  in 
Lear  and  The  Tempest.  And  this  brings  up  another  point,  i.e., 
Collin's  supposition  that  Shakespeare's  texts  as  we  have  them 
are  exactly  as  he  wrote  them.  When  the  line  halts,  ColUn  simply 
finds  proof  of  the  poet's  fine  ear!  The  truth  probably  is  that 
Shakesp)eare  had  a  good  ear  and  that  he  always  wrote  good  lines, 
but  that  he  took  no  pains  to  see  that  these  lines  were  correctly 
printed.    Take,  for  example,  such  a  line  as: 

As  far  as  Belmont. 

In  such  a  night 

This  would,  if  written  by  anyone  else,  always  be  considered  bad, 
and  Dr.  Western  does  not  beheve  that  Collin's  theory  of  the  pauses 
will  hold.  The  pause  plays  no  part  in  verse.  A  fine  consists  of 
a  fixed  number  of  heard  syllables.  Collin  would  say  that  a  line 
like  I,  1-73: 

I  will  not  fail  you, 

is  filled  out  with  a  bow  and  a  swinging  of  the  hat.  Then  why  are 
the  lines  just  before  it,  in  which  Salarino  and  Salario  take  leave 
of  each  other,  not  defective?  Indeed,  how  can  we  be  sure  that 
much  of  what  passes  for  "  Shakespeare's  versification"  is  not  based 
on  printers'  errors?  In  the  folio  of  1623  there  are  long  passages 
printed  in  prose  which,  after  closer  study,  we  must  beheve  were 
written  in  verse — the  opening  of  Lear  and  The  Tempest.  Often, 
too,  it  is  plain  that  the  beginnings  and  endings  of  lines  have  been 
run  together.    Take  the  passage: 

Sal:  Why,  then  you  are  in  love. 

Ant:  Fie,  fie! 

Sal:  Not  in  love  neither?    Then  let  us  say  you  are  sad — 

The  first  line  is  one  foot  short,  the  second  one  foot  too  long.  This 
Collin  would  call  a  stroke  of  genius;  each  fie  is  a  complete  foot, 
and  the  line  is  complete!    But  what  if  the  line  were  printed  thus: 

Sal:  Why,  then  you  are  in  love. 
Ant:  Fie,  fie! 

Sal:  Not  in 

Love  neither?    Then  let  us  say  you  are  sad. 

or  possibly: 

Love  neither?    Then  let's  say  that  you  arc  sad. 


92 

Another  possible  printer's  error  is  found  in  I,  3-116: 

With  bated  breath  and  whispering  humbleness 

Say  this; 

Fair  sir,  you  spit  on  me  on  Wednesday  last. 

Are  we  here  to  imagine  a  pause  of  four  feet?  And  what  are  we  to 
do  with  the  first  folio  which  has 

Say  this;  Fair  sir,  you  spit  on  me  on  Wednesday  last. 

all  in  one  line?  Perhaps  some  printer  chose  between  the  two. 
At  any  rate,  Collin's  theory  will  not  hold.  In  the  schools,  of  course, 
one  cannot  be  a  text  critic  but,  on  the  other  hand,  one  must  not 
praise  in  Shakespeare  what  may  be  the  tricks  of  the  printer's 
devil.    The  text  is  not  always  faultless. 

Finally,  Dr.  Western  objects  to  the  statement  that  the  dif- 
ficulty in  translating  Shakespeare  lies  in  the  great  number  of 
monosyllables  and  gives 

In  sooth,  I  know  not  why  I  am  so  sad 

as  proof.  Ten  monosyllables  in  one  line!  But  this  is  not  impos- 
sible in  Norwegian: 

For  sand,  jeg  ved  ei,  hvi  jeg  er  saa  trist — 

It  is  not  easy  to  translate  Shakespeare,  but  the  difiiculty  goes 
deeper  than  his  richness  in  words  of  one  syllable. 

With  the  greater  part  of  Dr.  Western's  article  everyone  will 
agree.  It  is  doubtful  if  any  case  could  be  made  out  for  the  division 
of  prose  and  verse  based  on  psychology.  Shakespeare  probably 
wrote  his  plays  in  verse  for  the  same  reason  that  Goethe  and 
Schiller  and  Oehlenschlager  did.  It  was  the  fashion.  And  how 
difiicult  it  is  to  break  with  fashion  or  with  old  tradition,  the 
history  of  Ibsen's  transition  from  poetry  to  prose  shows.  It  is 
equally  certain  that  in  Collin's  Introduction  it  is  difiicult  to 
distinguish  ascertained  facts  from  brilliant  speculation.  But  it  is 
not  easy  to  agree  with  Dr.  Western  that  Collin's  explanation  of 
the  "pause"  is  a  tissue  of  fancy. 

In  the  first  place,  no  one  denies  that  the  printers  have  at  times 
played  havoc  with  Shakespeare's  text.  Van  Dam  and  Stoffel,  to 
whose  book  Western  refers  and  whose  suggestions  are  directly 
responsible  for  this  article,  have  shown  this  clearly  enough.  But 
when  Dr.  Western  argues  that  because  printers  have  corrupted 
the  text  in  some  places,  they  must  be  held  accountable  for  every 


93 


defective  short  line,  we  answer,  it  does  not  follow.  In  the  second 
place,  why  should  not  a  pause  play  a  part  in  prosody  as  well  as 
in  music?    Recall  Tennyson's  verse: 

Break,  break,  break, 
On  thy  cold,  grey  stones,  o  sea! 

where  no  one  feels  that  the  first  line  is  defective.  Of  course  the 
answer  is  that  in  Tennyson  no  accented  syllable  is  lacking.  But  it 
is  difficult  to  understand  what  difference  this  makes.  When  the 
reader  has  finished  pronouncing  Belmont  there  must  be  a  moment's 
hesitation  before  Lorenzo  breaks  in  with: 

In  such  a  night 

and  this  pause  may  have  metrical  value.  The  only  judge  of  verse, 
after  all,  is  the  hearer,  and,  in  my  opinion,  Collin  is  right  when  he 
points  out  the  value  of  the  slight  metrical  pause  between  the  bits 
of  repartee.  Whether  Shakespeare  counted  the  syllables  before- 
hand or  not,  is  another  matter.  In  the  third  place,  ColUn  did  not 
quote  in  support  of  his  theory  the  preposterous  lines  which  Dr. 
Western  uses  against  him.     Collin  does  quote  I,  1-5: 

I  am  to  learn. 

and  I,  1-73: 

I  will  not  fail  you 
is  a  close  parallel,  but  ColUn  probably  would  not  insist  that  his 
theory  accounts  for  every  case.  As  to  Dr.  Western's  other  exam- 
ple of  good  meter  spoiled  by  corrupt  texts,  Collin  would,  no  doubt, 
admit  the  possibility  of  the  proposed  emendations.  It  would 
not  alter  his  contention  that  a  pause  in  the  line,  like  a  pause  in 
music,  is  not  necessarily  void,  but  may  be  very  significant  indeed. 

The  array  of  Shakespearean  critics  in  Norway,  as  we  said  at 
the  beginning,  is  not  imposing.  Nor  are  their  contributions 
important.  But  they  show,  at  least,  a  sound  acquaintance  with 
Shake^eare  and  Shakespeareana,  and  some  of  them,  like  the 
articles  of  Just  Bing,  Brettville  Jensen,  Christen  Collin,  and 
August  Western,  are  interesting  and  illuminating.  Bjj^rnson's 
article  in  Aftenbladet  is  not  merely  suggestive  as  Shakespearean 
criticism,  but  it  throws  valuable  light  on  Bj^rnson  himself 
and  his  literary  development.  When  we  come  to  the  dramatic 
criticism  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  we  shall  find  renewed  evidence  of 
a  wide  and  inteUigent  knowledge  of  Shakespeare  in  Norway. 


94 


CHAPTER  III 
Performances  of  Shakespeare's  Plays  in  Norway 

Christiania 

The  first  public  theater  in  Christiania  was  opened  by  the  Swe- 
dish actor,  Johan  Peter  Stromberg,  on  January  30,  1827,  but  no 
Shakespeare  production  was  put  on  during  his  short  and  troubled 
administration.  Not  quite  two  years  later  this  strictly  private 
undertaking  became  a  semi-public  one  under  the  immediate  direc- 
tion of  J.  K.  Bocher,  and  at  the  close  of  the  season  1829-30,  Bocher 
gave  by  way  of  epilogue  to  the  year,  two  performances  including 
scenes  from  Holberg's  Melampe,  Shakespeare's  Hamlet^  and 
Oehlenschlager's  Aladdin.  The  Danish  actor  Berg  played  Hamlet, 
but  we  have  no  further  details  of  the  performance.  We  may  be 
sure,  however,  that  of  the  two  translations  available,  Boye's  and 
Foersom's,  the  latter  was  used.  Hamlet,  or  a  part  of  it,  was  thus 
given  for  the  first  time  in  Norway  nearly  seventeen  years  after 
Foersom  himself  had  brought  it  upon  the  stage  in  Denmark.* 

More  than  fourteen  years  were  to  elapse  before  the  theater 
took  up  Shakespeare  in  earnest.  On  July  28,  1844,  the  first  com- 
plete Shakespearean  play  was  given.  This  was  Macbeth  in  Foer- 
som's version  of  Schiller's  "  bearbeitung, "  which  we  shall  take 
up  in  our  studies  of  Shakespeare  in  Denmark.*  No  reviews  of 
it  are  to  be  found  in  the  newspapers  of  the  time,  not  even  an 
announcement."  This,  however,  does  not  prove  that  the  event  was 
unnoticed,  for  the  press  of  that  day  was  a  naive  one.  Extensive 
reviews  were  unknown;  the  most  that  the  public  expected  was  a 
notice. 

We  are  equally  ignorant  of  the  fate  of  Othello,  performed  the 
next  season,  being  given  for  the  first  time  on  January  3,  1845. 

^  Blanc:  Christianias   Theaters  Historie,    p.   51. 

2  Blanc  does  not  refer  to  this  performance  in  his  Historie.  But  this  and 
all  other  data  of  performances  from  1844  to  1899  are  taken  from  his  "Forteg- 
nelse  over  all  dramatiske  Arbeider,  som  siden  Kristiania  OfiFentlige  Theaters 
Aabning,  den  30.  Januar  1827,  har  vaert  opfj^rt  af  dets  Peisonale  indtil  15  Juni 
1899. "  The  work  is  mipublished.  Ms  4to,  No.  940  in  the  University  Library, 
Christiania. 


95 

Wulff^s  Danish  translation  was  used.  Blanc  says  in  his  Historic 
that  Desdemona  and  lago  were  highly  praised,  but  that  the  play 
as  a  whole  was  greatly  beyond  the  powers  of  the  theater. 

Nearly  eight  years  later,  November  11,  1852,  Romeo  and  Juliet 
in  Foersom's  translation  received  its  Norwegian  premiere.  The 
acting  version  used  was  that  made  for  the  Royal  Theater  in  Cop- 
enhagen by  A.  E.  Boye  in  1828."*  Christiania  Posten^  reports  a 
packed  house  and  a  tremendous  enthusiasm.  Romeo  (by  Wiehe) 
and  Juliet  (by  Jomfru  Svendsen)  revealed  careful  study  and  com- 
plete understanding.  The  reviewer  in  Morgenblade^  begins  with 
the  Httle  essay  on  Shakespeare  so  common  at  the  time;  "Every- 
one knows  with  what  colors  the  immortal  Shakespeare  depicts 
human  passions.  In  Othello^  jealousy;  in  Hamlet ^  despair;  in 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  love,  are  sung  in  tones  which  penetrate  to  the 
depths  of  the  soul.  Against  the  background  of  bitter  feud,  the 
love  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  stands  out  victorious  and  beneficent. 
Even  if  we  cannot  comprehend  this  passion,  we  can,  at  least,  feel 
the  ennobUng  power  of  the  story."  Both  of  the  leading  parts  are 
warmly  praised.  Of  Wiehe  the  reviewer  says:  "Der  var  et  Liv 
af  Varme  hos  ham  i  fuldt  Maal,  og  den  graendselj^se  Fortvivlelse 
blev  gjengivet  med  en  naesten  forfaerdelig  Troskab." 

The  same  season  (Dec.  11,  1852)  the  theater  also  presented 
As  You  Like  It  in  the  Danish  version  by  Sille  Beyer.  The  per- 
formance of  two  Shakespearean  plays  within  a  year  may  rightly  be 
called  an  ambitious  undertaking  for  a  small  theatre  without  a 
cent  of  subsidy.  Christiania  Fasten  says:  "It  is  a  real  kindness 
to  the  public  to  make  it  acquainted  with  these  old  masterpieces. 
One  feels  refreshed,  as  though  coming  out  of  a  bath,  after  a  plunge 
into  their  boundless,  pure  poetry.  The  marvellous  thing  about 
this  comedy  {As  You  Like  It)  is  its  wonderful,  spontaneous  fresh- 
ness, and  its  freedom  from  all  sentimentaHty  and  emotional  non- 
sense." The  actmg,  says  the  critic,  was  admirable,  but  its  high 
quality  must,  in  a  measure,  be  attributed  to  the  sympathy  and 
enthusiasm  of  the  audience.  Wiehe  is  praised  for  his  interpretation 
of  Orlando  and  Jomfru  Svendsen  for  her  Rosalind.^    Apparently 

'  See  p.  85,  note  1. 

*  See  Aumont  og  Collin:  Z>e/  Danske  Nationalieater.    V  Afsnit,  pp.  118  fif. 
^Christiania    Posten.  November    15,    1845. 

*  Morgenbladet.  November   15,    1845. 
'  Christiania  Posten.  Dec.  12,  1852. 


96 

none  of  the  reviewers  noticed  that  Sille  Beyer  had  turned  Shake- 
speare upside  down.  Her  version  was  given  for  the  last  time  on 
Sept.  25,  1878,  and  in  this  connection  an  interesting  discussion 
sprang  up  in  the  press. 

The  play  was  presented  by  student  actors,  and  the  perfor- 
mance was  therefore  less  finished  than  it  would  have  been  under 
other  circumstances.  Aftenposten  was  doubtless  right  when  it 
criticised  the  director  for  entrusting  so  great  a  play  to  unpractised 
hands,  assuming  that  Shakespeare  should  be  played  at  all.  "  For 
our  part,  we  do  not  believe  the  time  far  distant  when  Shakespeare 
will  cease  to  be  a  regular  part  of  the  repertoire.  "*  To  this  state- 
ment a  contributor  in  Aftenposten  for  Sept.  28  objected.  He  admits 
that  Shakespeare  wrote  his  plays  for  a  stage  different  from  our 
own,  that  the  ease  with  which  Elizabethan  scenery  was  shifted 
gave  his  plays  a  form  that  makes  them  difficult  to  play  today. 
Too  often  at  a  modern  presentation  we  feel  that  we  are  seeing  a 
succession  of  scenes  rather  than  unified,  organic  drama.  But, 
after  all,  the  main  thing  is  the  substance — "  the  weighty  content, 
and  this  will  most  certainly  secure  for  them  for  a  long  time  to 
come  a  place  in  the  repertoire  of  the  theater  of  the  Germanic 
world.  So  long  as  we  admit  that  in  the  delineation  of  character, 
in  the  presentation  of  noble  figures,  and  in  the  mastery  of  dia- 
logue, Shakespeare  is  unexcelled,  so  long  we  must  admit  that 
Shakespeare  has  a  place  on  the  modern  stage." 

Where  did  Aftenposten^s  reviewer  get  the  idea  that  Shake- 
speare's plays  are  not  adapted  to  the  modern  stage?  Was  it 
from  Charles  Lamb?  At  any  rate,  it  is  certain  that  he  antici- 
pated a  movement  that  has  led  to  many  devices  both  in  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking countries  and  in  Germany  to  reproduce  the  stage 
conditions  under  which  Shakespeare's  plays  were  performed 
during  his  own  life. 

Of  the  next  Shakespearean  piece  to  be  performed  in  Christi- 
ania,  AlVs  Well  That  Ends  Welly  there  is  but  the  briefest  mention 
in  the  newspapers.  We  know  that  it  was  given  in  the  curiously 
perverted  arrangement  by  Sille  Beyer  and  was  presented  twelve 
times  from  January  15,  1854  to  May  23,  1869.  On  that  day  a 
new  version  based  on  Lembcke's  translation  was  used,  and  in  this 

*  Aftenposten.  Sept.  21,  1878. 


97 

form  the  play  was  given  eight  times  the  following  seasons.  Since 
January  24,  1882,  it  has  not  been  performed  in  Norway.® 

At  the  beginning  of  the  next  season,  October  29,  1854,  Much 
Ado  About  Nothing  was  introduced  to  Kristiania  theater-goers 
under  the  title  Blind  Alarm.  The  translation  was  by  Carl  Bor- 
gaard,  director  of  the  theater.  But  here,  too,  contemporary 
documents  leave  us  in  the  dark.  There  is  merely  a  brief  announce- 
ment in  the  newspapers.  Blanc  informs  us  that  Jomfru  Svendsen 
played  Hero,  and  Wiehe,  Benedict.^" 

After  Blind  Alarm  Shakespeare  disappears  from  the  repertoire 
for  nearly  four  years.  A  version  of  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew 
under  the  title  Hun  Maa  Tcemmes  was  given  on  March  28,  1858, 
but  with  no  great  success.  Most  of  the  papers  ignored  it.  Aften- 
bladet  merely  announced  that  it  had  been  given.^^ 

Viohj  Sille  Beyer's  adaptation  of  Twelfth  Night  was  presented 
at  Christiania  Theater  on  November  20,  1860,  the  eighth  of  Shake- 
speare's plays  to  be  presented  in  Norway,  and  again  not  merely 
in  a  Danish  text  but  in  a  version  made  for  the  Copenhagen  Theater. 

Neither  the  critics  nor  the  pubUc  were  exacting.  The  press 
hailed  Viola  as  a  tremendous  reUef  from  the  frothy  stuff  with 
which  theater-goers  had  been  sickened  for  a  season  or  two.  "The 
theater  finally  justified  its  existence, "  says  Morgenbladetj^^  "by  a 
performance  of  one  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  Viola  was  beauti- 
fully done."  The  writer  then  explains  in  conventional  fashion 
the  meaning  of  the  English  title  and  goes  on — "But  since  the 
celebration  of  Twelfth  Night  could  interest  only  the  English,  the 
Germans  have  "bearbeidet"  the  play  and  centered  the  interest 
around  Viola.  We  have  adopted  this  version."  He  approves 
of  Sille  Beyer's  cutting,  though  he  admits  that  much  is  lost  of  the 
breadth  and  overwhelming  romantic  fulness  that  mark  the  original. 
But  this  he  thinks  is  compensated  for  by  greater  intelligibihty 
and  the  resulting  dramatic  effect.  "Men  hvad  Stykket  ved 
saadan  Forandring,  Beklippelse,  og  Udeladelse  saaatsige  taber 
af  sin  Fylde  idet  ikke  alt  det  Leende,  Sorgl^se  og  Romantiske 
vandre  saa  ligeberettiget  side  om  side  igjennem  Stykket,  mens 
det  0vrige  samler  sig  om  Viola,  det  opveies  ved  den  st^rre  For- 

•See  Blanc's  Fortegnelse.  p.  93. 
^"See  Blanc's  Fortegnelse.  p.  93. 
^^  Afienbladei.  March  22,   1858. 
«  November  23.  1860. 


98 

staaelighed  for  vort  Publikum  og  denne  mere  afrundede  sceniske 
Virkning,  Stykket  ved  Bearbeidelsen  har  faaet."  As  the  piece 
is  arranged  now  Viola,  and  her  brother  are  not  on  the  stage  at  the 
same  time  until  Act  V.  Both  roles  may  therefore  be  played  by 
Jomfru  Svendsen.  The  critic  is  captivated  by  her  acting  of  the 
double  role,  and  J^rgensen's  Malvolio  and  Johannes  Brun's  Sir 
Andrew  Aguecheek  share  with  her  the  glory  of  a  thoroughly  suc- 
cessful performance. 

Sille  Beyer's  Viola  was  given  twelve  times.  From  the  thir- 
teenth performance,  January  21,  1890,  Twelfth  Night  was  given 
in  a  new  form  based  on  Lembcke's  translation. 

A  thorough  search  through  the  newspaper  files  fails  to  reveal 
even  a  slight  notice  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice  (Kj^bmanden  i 
Venedig)  played  for  the  first  time  on  Sept.  17,  1861.  Rahbek's 
translation  was  used,  and  this  continued  to  be  the  standard  until 
1874,  when,  beginning  with  the  eighth  performance,  it  was  replaced 
by  Lembcke's. 

We  come,  then,  to  A  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream  (Skjaersom- 
mematsdrjiJmmen)  played  in  Oehlenschlager's  translation  under 
Bj0mson's  direction  on  April  17,  1865.  The  play  was  given  ten 
times  from  that  date  till  May  27,  1866.  In  spite  of  this  unusual 
run  it  appears  to  have  been  only  moderately  successful,  and  when 
Bj0rnson  dropped  it  in  the  spring  of  1866,  it  was  to  disappear  from 
the  repertoire  for  thirty-seven  years.  On  January  15,  1903,  it 
was  revived  by  Bj^rnson's  son,  Bj^rn  Bjj^rnson.  This  time, 
however,  it  was  called  Midsommernatsdrommen,  and  the  acting 
version  was  based  on  Lembcke's  translation.  In  this  new  shape 
it  has  been  played  twenty-seven  times  up  to  January,  1913. 

The  interesting  polemic  which  Bj^rnson's  production  occa- 
sioned has  already  been  discussed  at  some  length.  This  may  be 
according  added,  however:  A  play  which,  to  the  poet's  confession, 
influenced  his  fife  as  this  one  did,  has  played  an  important  part 
in  Norwegian  literature.  The  influence  may  be  intangible.  It  is 
none  the  less  real. 

More  popular  than  any  of  the  plays  which  had  thus  far  been 
presented  in  Norway  was  A  Winter^s  Tale,  performed  at  Chris- 
tiania  Theater  for  the  first  time  on  May  4,  1866.  The  version 
used  had,  however,  but  a  faint  resemblance  to  the  original.  It  was 
a  Danish  revision  of  Dingelstedt's  Ein  Wintermdrchen.    I  shall 


99 

discuss  this  Holst-Dingelstedt  text  in  another  place.  At  this 
point  it  is  enough  to  say  that  Shakespeare  is  highly  diluted.  It 
seems,  nevertheless,  to  have  been  successful,  for  between  the  date 
of  its  premiere  and  March  21,  1893,  when  it  was  given  for  the  last 
time,  it  received  fifty-seven  performances,  easily  breaking  all 
records  for  Shakespearean  plays  at  the  old  theater.  And  at  the 
new  National  Theater,  where  it  has  never  been  given,  no  Shake- 
spearean play,  with  the  exception  of  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  has 
approached  its  record. 

Aftenhladet^^  in  its  preliminary  review  said:  "Although  this  is 
not  one  of  Shakespeare's  greatest  plays,  it  is  well  worth  putting 
on,  especially  in  the  form  which  Dingelstedt  has  given  to  it.  It 
was  received  with  the  greatest  enthusiasm."  But  Aftenhladefs 
promised  critical  review  never  appeared. 

More  interesting  and  more  important  than  most  of  the  per- 
formances which  we  have  thus  far  considered  is  that  of  Henry  IV 
in  1867,  while  Bjf^rnson  was  still  director.  To  his  desire  to  give 
Johannes  Brun  an  opportunity  for  the  display  of  his  genius  in  the 
greatest  of  comic  roles  we  owe  this  version  of  the  play.  Bj^rnson 
obviously  could  not  give  both  parts,  and  he  chose  to  combine 
cuttings  from  the  two  into  a  single  play  with  Falstaff  as  the  central 
figure.  The  translation  used  was  Lembcke's  and  the  text  was  only 
slightly  norvagicized. 

Bjjirnson's  original  prompt  book  is  not  now  available.  In 
1910,  however,  H.  Wiers  Jensen,  a  playwright  associated  with  the 
National  Theater,  shortened  and  slightly  adapted  the  version  for 
a  revival  of  the  play,  which  had  not  been  seen  in  Kristiania  since 
February  8,  1885.  We  may  assume  that  in  all  essentials  the 
prompt  book  of  1910  reproduces  that  of  1867. 

In  this  Kong  Henrik  IV  the  action  opens  with  I  Henry  IV,  II-4, 
and  Act  I  consists  of  this  scene  freely  cut  and  equally  freely  handled 
in  the  distribution  of  speeches.  The  opening  of  the  scene,  for 
example,  is  cut  away  entirely  and  replaced  by  a  brief  account  of 
the  robbery  put  naively  into  the  mouth  of  Poins.  The  opening  of 
Act  II  is  entirely  new.  Since  all  the  historical  scenes  of  Act  I 
of  the  original  have  been  omitted,  it  becomes  necessary  to  give  the 
audience  some  notion  of  the  background.  This  is  done  in  a  few 
lines  in  which  the  King  tells  of  the  revolt  of  the  nobles  and  of  his 

w  May  5,  1866. 


100 

own  difficult  situation.  Then  follows  the  king's  speech  from 
Part  I,  Act  III,  Sc.  2: 

Lords,  give  us  leave;  the  prince  of  Wales  and  I 
must  have  some  conference.  .  .  . 

and  what  follows  is  the  remainder  of  the  scene  with  many  cuttings. 
Sir  Walter  Blunt  does  not  appear.    His  role  is  taken  by  Warwick. 

Act  II,  Sc.  2  of  Bj>mson's  text  follows  Part  I,  Act  III,  Sc.  3 
closely. 

Act  III,  Sc.  1  corresponds  with  Part  I,  Act  III,  Sc.  1  to  the 
point  where  Lady  Mortimer  and  Lady  Percy  enter.  This  episode 
is  cut  and  the  scene  resumes  with  the  entrance  of  the  messenger 
in  Part  I,  Act  IV,  Sc.  1,  line  14.  This  scene  is  then  followed  in 
outline  to  the  end. 

Act  III,  Sc.  2  begins  with  Part  I,  Act  IV,  Sc.  3  from  the  entrance 
of  Falstaff,  and  follows  it  to  the  end  of  the  scene.  To  this  is 
added  most  of  Scene  4,  but  there  is  little  left  of  the  original  action. 
Only  the  Falstaff  episodes  are  retained  intact. 

The  last  act  (IV)  is  a  wonderful  composite.  Scene  1  corre- 
sponds closely  to  Part  II,  Act  III,  Sc.  4,  but  it  is,  as  usual,  severely 
cut.  Scene  2  reverts  back  to  Part  II,  Act  III,  Sc.  2  and  is  based  on 
this  scene  to  line  246,  after  which  it  is  free  handling  of  Part  II, 
Act  V,  Sc.  3.    Scene  3  is  based  on  Part  II,  Act  V,  Sc.  5 

A  careful  reading  of  Bj^rnson's  text  with  the  above  as  a  guide 
will  show  that  this  collection  of  episodes,  chaotic  as  it  seems, 
makes  no  ineffective  play.  With  a  genius — and  a  genius  Johannes 
Brun  was — as  Falstaff,  one  can  imagine  that  the  piece  went 
brilliantly.  The  press  received  it  favorably,  though  the  reviewers 
were  much  too  critical  to  allow  Bj^rnson's  mangling  of  the  text 
to  go  unrebuked. 

Aftenhladet  has  a  careful  review.^^  The  writer  admits  that 
in  our  day  it  requires  courage  and  labor  to  put  on  one  of  Shake- 
speare's historical  plays,  for  they  were  written  for  a  stage  radically 
different  from  ours.  In  the  Elizabethan  times  the  immense  scale 
of  these  "histories"  presented  no  difficulties.  On  a  modern  stage 
the  mere  bulk  makes  a  faithful  rendition  impossible.  And  the 
moment  one  starts  tampering  with  Shakespeare,  trouble  begins. 
No  two  adapters  will  agree  as  to  what  or  how  to  cut.    Moreover, 

"February  18,  1867. 


101       ^,^A:..: :'-':''- '•'-" 

it  may  well  be  questioned  whether  any  such  cutting  as  that  made 
for  the  theater  here  would  be  tolerated  in  any  other  country  with 
a  higher  and  older  Shakespeare  "Kultur."  The  attempt  to  fuse 
the  two  parts  of  Henry  IV  would  be  impossible  in  a  country  with 
higher  standards.  ''Our  theater  can,  however,  venture  undis- 
turbed to  combine  these  two  comprehensive  series  of  scenes  into 
one  which  shall  not  require  more  time  than  each  one  of  them 
singly — a  venture,  to  be  sure,  which  is  not  wholly  without  pre- 
cedent in  foreign  countries.  It  is  clear  that  the  result  cannot  give 
an  adequate  notion  of  Shakespeare's  '  histories '  in  all  their  richness 
of  content,  but  it  does,  perhaps,  give  to  the  theater  a  series  of 
worth-while  problems  to  work  out,  the  importance  of  which 
should  not  be  underestimated.  The  attempt,  too,  has  made  our 
theater-goers  familiar  with  Shakespeare's  greatest  comic  character, 
apparently  to  their  immense  delight.  Added  to  all  this  is  the 
fact  that  the  acting  was  uniformly  excellent." 

But  by  what  right  is  the  play  called  Henry  IV?  Practically 
nothing  is  left  of  the  historical  setting,  and  the  spectator  is  at  a 
loss  to  know  just  what  the  whole  thing  is  about.  Certainly  the 
whole  emphasis  is  shifted,  for  the  king,  instead  of  being  an  impor- 
tant character  is  overshadowed  by  Prince  Hal.  The  Falstaff 
scenes,  on  the  other  hand,  are  left  almost  in  their  original  fulness, 
and  thus  constitute  a  much  more  important  part  of  the  play  than 
they  do  in  the  original.  The  article  closes  with  a  glowing  tribute 
to  Johannes  Brun  as  Falstaff. 

Morgenbladet^  goes  into  greater  detail.  The  reviewer  seems 
to  think  that  Shakespeare  had  some  deep  purpose  in  dividing  the 
material  into  two  parts — he  wished  to  have  room  to  develop  the 
character  of  Prince  Henry.  "Accordingly,  in  the  first  part  he 
gives  us  the  early  stages  of  Prince  Hal's  growth,  beginning  with 
the  Prince  of  Wales  as  a  sort  of  superior  rake  and  tracing  the 
development  of  his  better  quahties.  In  Part  II  we  see  the  com- 
plete assertion  of  his  spiritual  and  intellectual  powers."  The 
writer  overlooks  the  fact  that  what  Shakespeare  was  writing  first 
of  all — or  rather,  what  he  was  revising — was  a  chronicle.  If  he 
required  more  than  five  acts  to  give  the  history  of  Henry  IV  he 
could  use  ten  and  call  it  two  plays.  If,  in  so  doing,  he  gave 
admirable  characterization,  it  was  something  inherent  in  his  own 
genius,  not  in  the  materials  with  which  he  was  working. 

«  February  17,   1867. 


102 


The  history,  says  the  reviewer,  and  the  Falstaff  scenes  are  the 
background  for  the  study  of  the  Prince,  each  one  serving  a  distinct 
purpose.  But  here  the  history  has  been  made  meaningless  and 
the  Falstaff  episodes  have  been  put  in  the  foreground.  He  points 
out  that  balance,  proportion,  and  perspective  are  all  lost  by  this. 
Yet,  granting  that  such  revolutionizing  of  a  masterpiece  is  ever 
allowable,  it  must  be  admitted  that  Bj^rnson  has  done  it  with 
considerable  skill.  Bj^rnson's  purpose  is  clear  enough.  He  knew 
that  Johannes  Brun  as  Falstaff  would  score  a  triumph,  and  this 
success  for  his  theater  he  was  determined  to  secure.  The  same 
motive  was  back  of  the  version  which  Stjernstr^m  put  on  in  Stock- 
holm, and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  his  success  suggested  the 
idea  to  Bjj^rnson.  The  nature  of  the  cutting  reveals  the  purpose 
at  every  step.  For  instance,  the  scene  in  which  the  Gadskill 
robbery  is  made  clear,  is  cut  entirely.  We  thus  lose  the  first 
glimpse  of  the  sterner  and  manlier  side  of  the  royal  reveller.  In 
fact,  if  Bj^mson  had  been  frank  he  would  have  called  his  play 
Falstaff — based  on  certain  scenes  from  Shakespeare^ s  Henry  IV, 
Parts  I  and  II. 

Yet,  though  much  has  been  lost,  much  of  what  remains  is 
excellent.  Brun's  Falstaff  almost  reconciles  us  to  the  sacrifice. 
Long  may  he  live  and  delight  us  with  it!  It  is  one  of  his  most 
superb  creations.  The  cast  as  a  whole  is  warmly  praised.  It  is 
interesting  to  note  that  at  the  close  of  the  review  the  critic  sug- 
gests that  the  text  be  revised  with  Hagberg's  Swedish  transla- 
tion at  hand,  for  Lembcke's  Danish  contains  many  words  unusual 
or  even  unfamiliar  in  Norwegian. 

Henry  IV  remained  popular  in  Norway,  although  from  Feb- 
ruary 8,  1885  to  February  10,  1910  it  was  not  given  in  Kristiania. 
When,  in  1910,  it  was  revived  with  L0vaas  as  Falstaff,  the  reception 
given  it  by  the  press  was  about  what  it  had  been  a  quarter  of  a 
century  before.  Aftenposten's^^  comment  is  characteristic:  "The 
play  is  turned  upside  down.  The  comic  sub-plot  with  Falstaff  as 
central  figure  is  brought  forward  to  the  exclusion  of  all  the  rest. 
More  than  this,  what  is  retained  is  shamelessly  altered.  *'  Much 
more  scathing  is  a  short  review  by  Christian  Elster  in  the  maga- 
zine Kringsjaa}'^    The  play,  he  declares,  has  obviously  been  given 

^^  Aftenposten.   February  25,    1910. 
"  Kringsjaa  XV,  III  (1910),  p.  173. 


103 

to  help  out  the  box  office  by  speculating  in  the  popularity  of  Fal- 
staff.  "There  is  no  unity,  no  coherence,  no  consistency  in  the 
delineation  of  characters,  and  even  from  the  comic  scenes  the 
spirit  has  fled.''^' 

To  all  this  it  may  be  replied  that  the  public  was  right  when  it 
accepted  Falstaff  for  what  he  was  regardless  of  the  violence  done 
to  the  original.  The  Norwegian  pubhc  cared  Uttle  about  the 
wars,  little  even  about  the  king  and  the  prince;  but  people  will 
tell  one  today  of  those  glorious  evenings  when  they  sat  in  the 
theater  and  revelled  in  Johannes  Brun  as  the  big,  elephantine 
knight. 

In  the  spring  of  1813,  Foersom  himself  brought  out  Hatnkt 
on  the  Danish  stage.  Nearly  sixty  years  were  to  pass  before  this 
play  was  put  on  in  Norway,  March  4,  1870. 

The  press  was  not  lavish  in  its  praise.  Dagbladet^^  remarks 
that  though  the  performance  was  not  what  it  ought  to  have  been, 
the  audience  followed  it  from  first  to  last  with  undivided  attention. 
AJtenbladef^  has  a  long  and  interesting  review.  Most  of  it  is 
given  over  to  a  criticism  of  Tsaachson's  Hamlet.  First  of  all, 
says  the  reviewer,  Isaachson  labors  under  the  delusion  that  every 
line  is  cryptic,  embodying  a  secret.  This  leads  him  to  forget  the 
volume  of  the  part  and  to  invent  all  sorts  of  fanciful  interpreta- 
tions for  details.  Thus  he  loses  the  unity  of  the  character.  Things 
are  hurried  through  to  a  conclusion  and  the  fine  transitions  are 
lost.  For  example,  ''Oh,  that  this  too,  too  solid  flesh  would  melt" 
is  started  well,  but  the  speech  at  once  gains  in  clearness  and  deci- 
sion until  one  wonders  at  the  close  why  such  a  Hamlet  does  not 
act  at  once  with  promptness  and  vigor.  There  are,  to  be  sure, 
occasional  excellences,  but  they  do  not  conceal  the  fact  that,  as 
a  whole,  Isaachson  does  not  understand  Hamlet. 

Since  its  first  performance  Hamlet  has  been  given  often  in 
Norway — twenty-eight  times  at  the  old  Christiania  Theater,  and 
(from  October  31,  1907)  seventeen  times  at  the  new  National 
Theater.  Its  revival  in  1907,  after  an  intermission  of  twenty- 
four  years,  was  a  complete  success,  although  Morgenbladefi^  com- 

"  March  5,  1870. 
»  March  8,  1870. 
'•November  1,  1917. 


104 

plained  that  the  performance  lacked  light  and  inspiration.  The 
house  was  full  and  the  audience  appreciative. 

Aftenposten^^  found  the  production  admirable.  Christensen's 
Hamlet  was  a  stroke  of  genius.  "Han  er  voxet  i  og  med  RoUen; 
han  har  traengt  sig  ind  i  den  danske  Prins'  dybeste  Individua- 
Utet."  And  of  the  revival  the  paper  says:  "The  performance 
shows  that  a  national  theater  can  solve  difficult  problems  when  the 
effort  is  made  with  sympathy,  joy,  and  devotion  to  art." 

In  my  judgment  no  theater  could  have  given  a  better  caste 
for  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  than  that  with  which  Christiania 
Theater  was  provided.  All  the  actors  were  artists  of  distinction; 
and  it  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  the  first  performance  was  a 
huge  success.  Aftenposten^  declares  that  Brun's  Falstaff  was  a 
revelation.  Morgenblade^  says  that  the  play  was  done  only 
moderately  well.  Brun  as  Falstaff  was,  however,  "especially 
amusing."  Aftenbladef^  is  more  generous.  "The  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor  has  been  awaited  with  a  good  deal  of  interest.  Next 
to  the  curiosity  about  the  play  itself,  the  chief  attraction  has  been 
Brun  as  Falstaff.  And  though  Falstaff  as  lover  gives  no  such 
opportunities  as  Falstaff,  the  mock  hero,  Brun  makes  a  notable 
role  out  of  it  because  he  knows  how  to  seize  upon  and  bring  out  all 
there  is  in  it." 

Johannes  Brun's  Falstaff  is  a  classic  to  this  day  on  the  Nor- 
wegian stage.  In  Illustreret  Tidende  for  July  12, 1874,  K.  A.  Winter- 
hjelm  has  a  short  appreciation  of  his  work.  "Johannes  Brun  has, 
as  nearly  as  we  can  estimate,  played  something  like  three  hundred 
r61es  at  Christiania  Theater.  Many  of  them,  to  be  sure,  are 
minor  parts — but  there  remains  a  goodly  number  of  important 
ones,  from  the  clown  in  the  farce  to  the  chief  parts  in  the  great 
comedies.  Merely  to  enumerate  his  great  successes  would  carry 
us  far  afield.  We  recall  in  passing  that  he  has  given  us  Falstaff 
both  in  Henry  IV  and  in  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor y  Bottom  in 
A  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream,  and  Autolycus  in  A  Winter^ s  Tale. 
Perhaps  he  lacks  something  of  the  nobleman  we  feel  that  he  should 
be  in  Henry  IV,  but  aside  from  this  petty  criticism,  what  a  won- 
drous comic  character  Brun  has  given  us!" 

21  November  1,  1907. 

22  May  15,  1873. 

23  May  15,   1873. 

24  May  15,  1873. 


105 

As  to  the  success  of  Coriolanus,  the  sixteenth  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  to  be  put  on  in  Kristiania,  neither  the  newspapers  nor  the 
magazines  give  us  any  clew.  If  we  may  beHeve  a  little  puff  in 
Aftenposten  for  January  20,  1874,  the  staging  was  to  be  magni- 
ficent. Coriolanus  was  played  in  a  translation  by  Hartvig  Lassen 
for  the  first  time  on  January  21,  1874.  After  thirteen  perfor- 
mances it  was  withdrawn  on  January  10,  1876,  and  has  not  been 
since  presented. 

In  1877,  Richard  III  was  brought  on  the  boards  for  the  first 
time,  but  apparently  the  occasion  was  not  considered  significant, 
for  there  is  scarcely  a  notice  of  it.  The  public  seemed  surfeited 
with  Shakespeare,  although  the  average  had  been  less  than  one 
Shakespearean  play  a  season.  At  all  events,  it  was  ten  years 
before  the  theater  put  on  a  new  one — Julius  Caesar ^  on  March 
22,  1888.  It  had  the  unheard  of  distinction  of  being  acted  sixteen 
times  in  one  month,  from  the  premiere  night  to  April  22.  Yet 
the  papers  passed  it  by  with  indifference.  Most  of  them  gave  it 
merely  a  notice,  and  the  promised  review  in  Aftenposten  never 
appeared. 

Julius  Caesar  is  the  last  new  play  to  be  presented  at  Chris- 
tiania  Theater  or  at  the  National  Theater,  which  replaced  the 
old  Christiania  Theater  in  1899.  From  October,  1899  to  January, 
1913  the  National  Theater  has  presented  eight  Shakespearean 
plays,  but  every  one  of  them  has  been  a  revival  of  plays  previously 
presented. 

Bergen 
Up  to  a  few  years  ago,  the  only  theater  of  consequence  in 
Norway,  outside  of  the  capital,  was  at  Bergen.  In  many  respects 
the  history  of  the  theater  at  Bergen  is  more  interesting  than  that  of 
the  theater  at  Christiania.  Estabhshed  in  1850,  while  Chris- 
tiania Theater  was  still  largely  Danish,  to  foster  Norwegian 
dramatic  art,  it  is  associated  with  the  greatest  names  in  Norwegian 
art  and  letters.  The  theater  owes  its  origin  mainly  to  Ole  Bull; 
Henrik  Ibsen  was  official  playwright  from  1851  to  1857,  and 
Bjj^mson  was  director  from  1857  to  1859.  For  a  dozen  years  or 
more  "Den  Nationale  Scene  i  Bergen."  led  a  precarious  existence 
and  finally  closed  its  doors  in  1863.  In  1876  the  theater  was 
reopened.  During  the  first  period  only  two  Shakespearean  plays 
were  given — Twelfth  Night  and  As  You  Like  It. 


106 

As  You  Like  It  in  Stille  Beyer's  version  was  played  twice 
during  the  season  1855-56,  on  September  30  and  October  3.  The 
press  is  silent  about  the  performances,  but  doubtless  we  may  accept 
Blanc's  statement  that  the  task  was  too  severe  for  the  Bergen 
theater.25 

Rather  more  successful  were  the  two  performances  of  Twelfth 
Night  in  a  stage  version  adapted  from  the  German  of  Deinhard- 
stein.  The  celebrated  Laura  Svendsen  played  the  double  r6le 
of  Sebastian- Viola  with  conspicuous  success.^^ 

The  Merchant  of  Venice  was  given  for  the  first  time  on  October 
9,  1878,  two  years  after  the  reopening  of  the  theater.  Bergens 
Tidende^''  calls  the  production  "a  creditable  piece  of  amateur 
theatricals,"  insisting  in  a  review  of  some  length  that  the  young 
theater  cannot  measure  up  to  the  demands  which  a  play  of  Shake- 
speare's makes.  Bergensposten  is  less  severe.  Though  far  from 
faultless,  the  presentation  was  creditable,  in  some  details  excellent. 
But,  quite  apart  from  its  absolute  merits,  there  is  great  satisfaction 
in  seeing  the  theater  undertake  plays  that  are  worth  while.^^ 
Both  papers  agree  that  the  audience  was  large  and  enthusiastic. 

The  next  season  A  Winter^s  Tale  was  given  in  H.  P.  Hoist's 
translation  and  adaptation  of  Dingelstedt's  German  acting  ver- 
sion Ein  Wintermdrchen.  The  press  greeted  it  enthusiastically. 
Bergens  Tidend^^  says:  "^  Winter's  Tale  was  performed  at  our 
theater  yesterday  in  a  manner  that  won  the  enthusiastic  applause 
of  a  large  gathering.  The  principal  actors  were  called  before  the 
curtain  again  and  again.  It  is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  any  theater 
to  give  a  Shakespeare  drama,  and  all  the  more  so  when  it  can  do  it 
in  a  form  as  artistically  perfect  as  was  yesterday's  presentation. " 

Concerning  Othello,  third  in  order  in  the  Shakespearean  reper- 
toire in  Bergen,  the  reviews  of  the  first  performance,  November 
13, 188 1 ,  are  conflicting.  Bergens  Tidende^^  is  all  praise.  It  has  no 
hesitation  in  pronouncing  Johannesen's  lago  a  masterpiece.  Ber- 
gensposten^^ calls  the  performance  passable  but  utterly  damns 

^Norges  Fjirste  Nationale  Scene.  Kristiania.  1884,  p.  206. 

^Ibid.,  p.  304. 

"  Bergens  Tidende,  October  10,  1878. 

^*  Bergensposten,  October  11,  1878. 

29  April  20,  1880.     Cf.  also  Bergensposten,  April  21,  1880. 

3»  November  14,  1881. 

'1  November  15,  1881. 


107 

Johannesen — "nothing  short  of  a  colossal  blunder."  Hr.  Johan- 
nesen  is  commended  to  the  easily  accessible  commentaries  of 
Taine  and  Genee,  and  to  Hamlet's  speech  to  the  players.  Des- 
demona  and  Cassio  are  dismissed  in  much  the  same  fashion. 

A  few  days  later,  November  18,  Bergensposten  reviewed  the 
performance  again  and  was  glad  to  note  a  great  improvement. 

Bergens  Addressecontoirs  Efterretninger^  agrees  with  Ber- 
gensposten in  its  estimate  of  Johannesen.  "He  gives  us  only  the 
villain  in  lago,  not  the  cunning  Ensign  who  deceives  so  many." 
But  Desdemona  was  thoroughly  satisfying. 

Whatever  may  have  been  its  initial  success,  Othello  did  not 
last.  It  was  given  four  times  during  the  season  1881-2,  but  was 
then  dropped  and  has  never  since  been  taken  up. 

Three  different  groups  of  Hamlet  performances  have  been 
given  in  Bergen.  In  September,  1883,  the  Ophelia  scenes  from 
Act  IV  were  given;  the  complete  play,  however,  was  not  given  till 
November  28,  1886.  The  press,*^  for  once,  was  unanimous  in 
declaring  the  production  a  success.  It  is  interesting  that  an 
untried  actor  at  his  debut  was  entrusted  with  the  role.  But,  to 
judge  from  the  press  comments,  Hr.  Lj^chen  more  than  justified 
the  confidence  in  him.  His  interpretation  of  the  subtlest  character 
in  Shakespeare  was  thoroughly  satisfying.^ 

Finally,  it  should  be  noted  that  a  Swedish  travelling  company 
under  the  direction  of  the  well-known  August  Lindberg  played 
Hamlet  in  Bergen  on  November  5,  1895. 

It  is  apparent  from  the  tone  of  the  press  comment  that  a 
Shakespearean  production  was  regarded  as  a  serious  undertaking. 
The  theater  approached  the  task  hesitatingly,  and  the  newspapers 
always  qualify  their  praise  or  their  blame  with  some  apologetic 
remark  about  "the  limited  resources  of  our  theater."  This 
explains  the  long  gaps  between  new  productions,  five  years  between 
Othello  (1881)  and  the  complete  Hamlet  (1886);  five  years  likewise 
between  Hamlet  and  King  Henry  IV. 

Henry  77  in  Bjj^rnson's  stage  cutting  promised  at  first  to 
establish  itself.    Its  first  performance  was  greeted  by  a  crowded 

3«  November  15,  1881. 

*  Cf.  Bergens  Tidende,  November  29,  1886;  Bergens  Aftenblad,  November 
29,  1886;  Bergensposten,  December  2,  1886. 

"  Cf.  Bergens  Tidende,  November  30,  1886;  Bergens  Aftenblad,  November 
29,   1886;  Bergensposten,   December   1,   1886. 


108 

house,  and  enthusiasm  ran  high.  The  press  questions  the  right 
of  the  play  to  the  title  of  Henry  IV,  since  it  is  a  collection  of  scenes 
grouped  about  Prince  Hal  and  Falstaff .  But  aside  from  this  purely 
objective  criticism  the  comment  is  favorable.^^ 

With  the  second  performance  (March  4,  1891)  comes  a  change. 
Bergens  Tidende  remarks  that  it  is  a  common  experience  that  a 
second  performance  is  not  so  successful  as  the  first.  Certainly 
this  was  true  in  the  case  of  Henry  IV,  The  life  and  sparkle  were 
gone,  and  the  sallies  of  Falstaff  awakened  no  such  infectious 
laughter  as  they  had  a  few  evenings  before.^®  There  was  no 
applause  from  the  crowded  house,  and  the  coolness  of  the  audience 
reacted  upon  the  players — all  in  violent  contrast  to  the  first  per- 
formance. The  reviewer  in  Aftenbladet  predicts  that  the  pro- 
duction will  have  no  very  long  life.^^  He  was  right.  It  was  given 
once  more,  on  March  6.  Since  then  the  theater-goers  of  Bergen 
have  not  seen  it  on  their  own  stage. 

Sille  Beyer's  Viola  (which,  in  turn,  is  an  adaptation  of  the 
German  of  Deinhardstein)  had  been  played  twice  at  the  old  Ber- 
gen Theater,  July  17  and  18,  1861.  It  was  now  (Oct.  9,  1892) 
revived  in  a  new  cutting  based  on  Lembcke's  Danish  translation. 
Bergens  Aftenblad  declares  that  the  cutting  was  reckless  and  the 
staging  almost  beggarly.  The  presentation  itself  hardly  rose 
above  the  mediocre.^^  Bergens  Tidende,  on  the  other  hand, 
reports  that  the  performance  was  an  entire  success.  The  caste 
was  unexpectedly  strong;  the  costumes  and  scenery  splendid. 
The  audience  was  appreciative  and  there  was  generous  applause.^^ 

The  last  new  play  to  find  a  place  on  the  repertoire  at  Bergen 
is  Romeo  and  Juliet.  This  was  performed  four  times  in  May, 
1897.  Like  Henry  IV,  it  promised  to  be  a  great  success,  but  it 
survived  only  four  performances.  Bergens  Tidende!^^  gives  a  care- 
ful, well-written  analysis  of  the  play  and  of  the  presentation.  The 
reviewer  gives  full  credit  for  the  beauty  of  the  staging  and  the 
excellence  of  the  acting,  but  criticises  the  censor  sharply  for  the 
unskillful  cutting,  and  the  stage  manager  for  the  long,  tiresome 

3s  Cf.  Bergens  Tidende,  March  2,  1891;  Bergens  Aftenblad,  March  2,  1891. 

3«Cf.  March   5,   1891. 

"  Cf.  March  5,  1891. 

38  October   10,   1892. 

"  October  10  and  13,  1892. 

"May  15,  1897. 


109 


waits.    Bergens  Aftenblad^^  praises  the  performance  almost  with- 
out reserve. 

And  the  last  chapter  in  the  history  of  Shakespeare's  dramas 
in  Bergen  is  a  revival  of  A  Winter^s  Tale  in  the  season  1902-3. 
The  theater  had  done  its  utmost  to  give  a  spendid  and  worthy 
setting,  and  great  care  was  given  to  the  rehearsals.  The  result 
was  a  performance  which,  for  beauty,  symmetry,  and  artistic 
unity  ranks  among  the  very  best  that  have  ever  been  seen  at  the 
theater.  The  press  was  unanimous  in  its  cordial  recognition.^^ 
The  play  was  given  no  less  than  nine  times  during  October,  1902. 
Since  then  Shakespeare  has  not  been  given  at  Den  Nationale 
Scene  i  Bergen. 

«>May  15,  1897. 

«See  Bergens  Aftenhlad  for  October  6-9,  1902;  Bergens  Tidende,  October 
6,  1902. 


no 


APPENDIX 
Register  of  Shakespearean  Performances  in  Norway 
Kristiania 
Christiania  Theater. 
The  following  record  is  an  excerpt  of  all  the  data  relating  to  Shakespeare 
in  T.  Blanc:  Fortegndse  over  alle  dramatiske  Arbeider,  som  siden  Kristiania 
Theaters  qffentlige  Aabning  den  30  Januar,  1827,  har  varet  opforte  paa 
samme  af  dels  Personate  indtil  15  Jimi  1899.    This  Fortegndse  is  still 
unpublished.    The  MS.  is  quarto  No.  940  in  the  University  Library, 
Kristiania. 

1.  BLIND  ALARM.  Skucspil  i  fem  Akter  af  Shakespeare.  (Original 
Title:  Much  Ado  About  Nothing).  Translated  by  Carl  Bor- 
gaard,  from  the  nineteenth  performance,  May  18,  1878,  under  the 
title  Stor  Staahei  for  Ingenting),  Oct.  29,  1854,  May  26,  1878. 
18  times. 

2.  CORIOLANUS.  Sjirgespil  i  5  Akter  af  Shakespeare,  bearbeidet  for 
for  Scenen  af  H.  Lassen.  Jan.  21,  1874 — Jan.  10,  1876.  13  times. 

3.  DE  MUNTRE  KONER  I  WINDSOR  Lystspil  i  5  Akter  af  Shakespjeare. 
(Adapted  for  the  stage  by  H.  Lassen.)  May  14,  1873,  Nov.  8, 
1876.     12  times. 

4.  EN  SKj^RSOMMERNATSDR^M.  Eventyrkomedie  i  5  Akter  af  W. 
Shakespeare.  (Original  Title:  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream.) 
Translated  by  Oehlenschlaeger.  Music  by  Mendelssohn-Bar- 
tholdy.    April  17,  1865,  May  27,  1866.     10  times. 

5.  ET  viNTEREVENTYR.  Romantisk  Skuespil  i  5  Akter.  Adapted 
from  Shakespeare's  A  Winter's  Tale  and  Dinglestedt's  Ein  Win- 
termdrchen  by  H.  P.  Hoist.  Music  by  Flotow.  May  4,  1866, 
March  21,  1893.    57  tunes. 

6.  HAMLET.  Tragedie  i  5  Akter  af  W.  Shakespeare.  Translated  by 
Foersom  and  Lembcke.  March  4,  1870,  April  27,  1883.  28 
times. 

7.  HUN  MAA  T^MMES.  Lystspil  i  4  Akter.  Adapted  from  Shake- 
speare's Taming  of  the  Shrew.  March  21,  1858,  April  12,  1881. 
28  times. 

8.  JULIUS  CAESAR.  Tragedie  i  5  Akter  af  William  Shakespeare. 
Translated  by  H.  Lassen.  March  22,  1887,  April  22,  1887.  16 
times. 

9.  Kj^BMANDEN  I  VENEDiG.  Skuespil  i  5  Akter  af  Shakespeare. 
Adapted  for  the  stage  from  Rahbek's  translation.  From  the 
eighth  performance  (Oct.  14,  1874)  probably  in  a  new  translation 
by  Lembcke.    Sept.  17,  1861,  June  12,  1882.     23  times. 

10.  KONG  HENRiK  DEN  FjERDE.  Skuespil  i  5  Akter  af  W.  Shakespeare. 
Adapted  by  Bj^mstjeme  BjjzJmson  from  King  Henry  IV,  Parts- 
land  2  in  Lembcke's  translation.  Feb.  12,  1867,  Feb.  8,  1885. 
17  times. 


Ill 


11.  KONG  RiCHAED  III.  Tragedic  i  5  Aktcr  af  W.  Shakcspcare.  Trans- 
lated by  Lembcke.    May  27,  1877,  March  10,  1891.    26  times. 

12.  KONGENS  L2EGE.  Romantisk  Lystspil  i  5  Akter  after  Shakespeare's 
AWs  Well  That  Ends  Well.  Adapted  by  Sille  Beyer.  From  the 
thirteenth  performance  (May  23,  1869)  given  under  the  title 
Naar  Enden  er  god  er  Alting  godt  in  a  new  translation  by  Edvard 
Lembcke.    Jan.  5,  1854,  Jan.  24,  1882.    20  times. 

13.  LiVET  I  SKOVEN.  Romantisk  Lystspil  i  4  Akter  efter  Shakespeares 
As  You  Like  It.  Adapted  by  Sille  Beyer.  Dec.  9,  1852,  Sept. 
25,  1878.     19  times. 

14.  MACBETH.  Tragedie  i  5  Akter  af  W.  Shakespeare.  Schiller's 
version  translated  by  Peter  Foersom.  Music  by  Weyse.  July 
28,  1844,  Jan.  6,  1896.    37  times. 

15.  OTHELLO,  MOREN  AF  VENEDiG.  Tragedie  i  5  Akter  af  Shakespeare. 
Translated  by  P.  L.  Wulff.  Jan.  3,  1845,  March  10,  1872.  10 
times. 

16.  ROMEO  OG  JULIE.  Tragedie  i  5  Akter  af  W.  Shakespeare.  Trans- 
lated by  P.  Foersom  and  A.  E.  Boye.  From  the  sixth  perfor- 
mance (April  4,  1880)  probably  in  a  new  translation  by  Lembcke. 
Nov.  11,  1852,  July  12,  1899.    42  times. 

17.  VIOLA.  Lystspil  i  5  Akter  efter  Shakespeare's  Twelfth  Night. 
Translated  and  adapted  by  Sille  Beyer.  From  the  thirteenth 
performance  (Jan.  21,  1890)  under  the  title  Helligtrekongersaften, 
eller  hvad  man  vil.  (In  Lembcke's  translation  with  music  by 
Catherinus  Filing.)     Nov.  20,  1860,  May  31,  1891.    30  times. 

II.    Nationaltheatret. 

The  record  of  the  Shakespearean  performances  at  Nationaltheatret  has 
been  compiled  from  the  summary  of  performances  given  in  the  decade 
1899-1909  contained  in  Beretning  om  Nationaltheatrets  Virksomhed  i 
Aaret  1909-1910.  Kristiania,  1910.  The  record  of  performances  sub- 
sequent to  1910,  as  well  as  the  date  of  the  first  performances  of  all  plays, 
has  been  found  in  the  Journal  of  the  theater. 

1.  HELLIGTREKONGERSAFTEN.     (Twelfth  Night).    Oct.  5,  1899.     10 
times. 

2.  TROLD  KAN  T^MMES.     (The  Taming  of  the  Shrew.)    Dec.  26,  1900. 
35  times. 

3.  EN  SOMMERNATS  DROM.     (A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream)   Jan. 
15,  1903.    20  times. 

4.  KjOBMANDEN  I  \rENEDiG.     (The  Merchant  of  Venice)  Sept.  5, 
1906.    20  times. 

5.  HAMLET.    Oct.  31,  1907.     17  times. 

6.  OTHELLO.    Oct.  22,   1908.     12  times. 

7.  HENRY  IV.     Feb.    10,    1910.     10  times. 

8.  AS  YOU  LIKE  IT.    Nov.  7,  1912.    This  play  was  still  being  given 
when  the  investigation  ceased.    Ten  performances  had  been  given. 


112 


Bergen 

I.  The  First  Theater  in  Bergen  (1850-1863) 

The  information  relating  to  Shakespeare  at  the  old  theater  is  gathered 
from  T.  Blanc:  Norges  ffirste  nationale  Scene.  Bergen  1850-1863.  Ei 
Bidrag  til  den  norske  dramatiske  Kunsts  Historie.  Kristianiay  1884. 

1,  LTVET  I  SKOVEN.  Romantisk  Skuespil  i  4  Akter  efter  Shake^)eares 
^4^  You  Like  It.  Adapted  by  Sille  Beyer.  Sept.  30  and  Oct. 
9,   1855.    2   times. 

2.  VIOLA.  Lystspil  i  5  Akter  efter  Deinhardsteins  Bearbeidelse. 
af  Shakespeare's  What  You  Will.  Adapted  by  Sille  Beyer.  July 
17  and  18,  1861.    2  times. 

II.  The  New  Theater  at  Bergen  (1876) 

The  following  data  have  been  communicated  to  me  by  Hr.  Christian 
Landal,  of  the  theater  at  Bergen.  They  have  been  compiled  from  the 
Journal  {Spillejournal)  of  the  theater. 

1.  KjOBMANDEN  I  VENEDiG  (The  Merchant  of  Venice)  Oct.  9,  11,  13, 
1878.  Friday,  June  18,  1880,  the  Shylock  scenes,  with  Emil 
Paulsen  (of  the  Royal  Theater  in  Copenhagen)  as  guest.    4  times. 

2.  ET  viNTEREVENTYR.  (A  Winter's  Tale)  April  19,  21,  25,  26,  28, 
1880;  May  9,  1880;  Nov.  28,  29,  1889;  Oct.  5,  6,  8,  10,  12,  13,  15, 
17,    20,    1902.     18    times. 

3.  OTHELLO.    Nov.  13,  16,  18,  28,  1881.    4  times. 

4.  HAMLET.  Nov.  28  and  29;  Dec.  1,  5,  19,  1886.  The  Ophelia 
scenes  from  Act  4  with  Ida  Falberg  Kiachas  as  guest.  Sept. 
12,  14,  16,  21,  1883.  Guest  performance  by  August  Lindberg 
and  his  Swedish  company.     Nov.  15,  1895.     10  times. 

5.  HELLiGTREKONGERSAFTEN.  {Twelfth  Night)  in  Lembcke's  trans- 
lation. Oct.  9,  12,  14,  16,  1892;  April  23,  1893  in  Stavanger.  5 
times. 

6.  ROMEO  OG  JULIE.    May  12,  16,  19,  27,  1897.    4  times. 

SUMMARY 
There  have  been  played  in  Christiania  seventeen  plays  of  Shakespeare's 
with  a  total  of  540  performances.    In  Bergen  seven  Shakespearean  plays  have 
been  played  with  a  total  of  49  performances. 


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